(by Dave, 5 min)
I have to move. I have to keep going. Behind me I see brown. Below me I see brown. Ahead, brown.
There’s an end to it. An edge. It calls. Over I go.
More brown. Upside down I move looking for something. Anything but endless flat brown. Smack. It sticks. I drop.
Blue. I have to move. I have to keep going.
White, there’s white. It’s on my left, I go right. It’s on my right, I go left. It chases. I run. It keeps coming at me. I give up and climb on top.
Green. I have to move. I have to keep going. A corner, stem and leaf. I spin.
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When the spider landed on my blue pants from the brown tabletop, I moved it with a white napkin. I could’ve swatted it dead. It would’ve been easier than lumbering out to the tree trying to keep the little creature on the napkin as it ran frantically looking for a way off. It had no awareness of landing on a blue landscape of high danger. To this tiny dot of life my blue clad thigh was just another obstacle to pass over in its search for a good web building spot. So, I helped it do what God put it on this earth to do.
I think of the spider today and pray: And so it is with me holy God. I amble through my days ignoring your presence that sees every step. There are blue surfaces that tempt me. Writings that lead me to self-righteous anger. Arrogance that denies your presence. Disappointment that age and disease impede my autonomy. Sin in every shade of blue calling me away from you. I drop into them if not in deed, then in my innermost thoughts. Or I descend to the glowing blue surface of forgetting about you. A chosen dementia prompting me onward in a life that yields short-lived highs of no lasting joy.
All the while you watch me and wait, hoping that I will see the white napkin of the Spirit and climb aboard. You could have swatted me dead for ignoring you, but you didn’t. Instead, you chase me with your Spirit. You bring it to life as guilt when I drop into sin. You present it to me as yearning for you in the midst of my heartache. As the world subsumes my thinking and disrupts my peace, you beckon at the corner of my consciousness to step on the napkin, a place of peace, truth and purpose..
Yet still I run from you. I turn from your white glowing goodness leaving undone the web you meant for me to build. Lord, I pray today I will choose you over a secular life. I pray I will remember the resurrected Christ who sent the white napkin my way. I pray that no sin will distract me from the purpose your Spirit gives.
My Father in heaven, the little spider knew what to do when my napkin landed him on the tree. I pray today that I will let your Spirit guide me likewise, and I will revel in your purpose for me. I pray this for me and for anyone with whom this prayer resonates so that collectively we can dedicate our lives to your glory. I pray that we will choose your almighty hand over an empty life lived for ourselves.
Help me, Lord, to build the web you put me here to make so that when I come home, you will say good job my beautiful spider. Welcome to the room I have prepared for those who answered my call. Sweet Savior of the world let me not come to that room empty-handed. In your name I pray,
Amen
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