Keep moving

BRIDGE BUILDERS

Amazing! I had parked the car in our driveway only the night before. I come out the next morning and a huge, beautiful, intricate cobweb connected the car to the roof of the carport and the wall of our house. There were no less than six anchor points of contact between which was a rather flexible cobweb. I could tell, because the wind made it sway. It was also strong, because bugs fighting for their lives were trapped and doomed.

The creator of the web: He may appear to be a roaring lion when the situation demands, but more often he lurks in sneaky quietness guarded by our unawareness of things going on around us.

It happened while I was asleep, while the vehicle was idle.

When I parked the car, there was no sign of the web. There was no sign of its creator, the ‘spinmeister.’ There was no sign of anything ominous. As a matter of fact, I had returned home after a productive day’s work. My car felt good about himself (or whatever sentiments run through inanimate objects in response to a job well done) for having transported my family and myself satisfactorily between home, school, Starbucks and the office. Then the vehicle sat idle throughout the whole night.

I spent the evening relaxing with a fascinating book on Incarnational Ministry and a delicious glassful of carrot juice. Then I slept the night away, dreaming pleasant dreams about peace on earth and goodwill toward all, including, of course, members of cultural and ethnic groups that are different from mine.

Meanwhile, outside our door, the spider worked its web.

It took a major effort to pull away from the cobweb.

Since, in this case, both my car and I are a lot bigger than our nemesis, it didn’t require too much of an effort to pull away from the sticky web. After all, the power of a couple hundred horses were activated by simply turning on the ignition and stepping on the pedal on the right. I have lived to tell the story! But what if we had been on the same scale? What if I had been the size of the bugs that never get out of the web? What if the powerful engine of the car were enveloped, with me inside, in a sticky tangle of octopus tentacles? Then what?

Would we have been able to prevent the disaster? Here are some things I could have thought about (and which I will start preparing as soon as I finish typing this manuscript).

The adversary spins his web when I am not watching. The web may practically be spun by myself by a tangle of lies, compromises, politically correct stands rather than truth, and below-mediocre efforts.

The adversary spins his web when I am idle. Let’s say a particular situation needs to be held up in prayer. A relationship between people I know may be on the rocks and they (or one of the involved parties) have asked me to hold them up in prayer. I promise to do so, but out of sight, out of prayer. I don’t pray on their behalf that their assigned angels will keep fending off the attacks of Satan’s demons. So, the little imps have free reign and can walk in unhindered on my friends to spread confusion and misunderstanding, all the time spinning the web tighter and stickier.

That’s bad enough, but it wasn’t until I walked into the web outside my house that I was reminded of this situation. You see, Satan spins his webs all over the place. Sometimes they are there because we haven’t paid attention, or because we have been idle, or because somebody else didn’t protect a particular area for Christ.

That’s why we need to pray and erect prayer shields around us, our friends, the unsaved, those who as yet have not claimed their Redemption. Spider webs don’t stick to prayer shields.

So keep moving! Move against the adversary in prayer. Move forward in your spiritual journey with God. Don’t get stuck in the web!