Spider Web

The elaborate beauty of a spider web can be easily seen in the morning if dew drops are still clinging to the web and the sun's rays shine on it at just the right angle.  You can actually preserve such a spider's web; you simply spray the web with dark spray paint, and quickly, before the paint dries, bring a piece of white cardboard up against it.  The painted web will permanently stick to the cardboard.  This was a fun cub scout activity which I learned to do while I was a den leader in Virginia.  I have captured some remarkable examples of webs which my family still marvels over.

Spider webs can be admired with our eyes and minds for their intricate design.  However, can you imagine trusting a spider web to support you in time of trouble?  Or can you imagine weaving cloth from a spider web?  How absurd you say?  We can't imagine anyone doing such a thing!  However, the Bible speaks of people who do just that!

Such are the paths of all who forget God; the hope of the godless shall perish.  His confidence is severed, and his trust is in a spider's web.  Job 13,14

They weave the spider's web...  Their webs will not serve as clothing; men will not cover themselves with what they make.   Isaiah 59:5,6

This last week I've read of people who have done just what these verses say.

The first example was a recently published book on the history and features of the earth published by the Smithsonian Institute.  Rather than giving any credit to God for creating the heavens and the earth, there were pages and pages of diagrams and outlandish theories of how the earth came to be.  Without acknowledging God, mankind must fabricate elaborate schemes (weave their own spider web) to explain the wonders and orderly design of God's creation.

The second example was a sample lecture that came in the mail as an unsolicited advertisement for The Great Courses (great courses taught by great professors priced at the special sale price of 70% off).  Out of curiousity I listened to the CD lecture on the biological origins of mankind's behavior.  The professor was teaching that how we behave, who we fall in love with, the intensity of our spiritual lives, the degree of our aggressive behavior, etc, is not our individual responsibility but is based on the brain's biology.  He lectured with the premise that our behavior is based on how the brain developed through evolution.  Left out of the lecture was the fact that God will one day evaluate us a free, moral agents responsible for the choices we've made in behavior and thought.  The Bible tells us that, at the time of judgment before God's throne, we must have chosen to be clothed in the standard of righteousness that has been offered to us by God, namely the offer of Jesus Christ.   It will do us no good to stand before a holy God dressed in the spider webs of biological excuses for our wrong behaviors.

The third example of people I've seen who have chosen to weave clothing of spider webs were individuals I saw in photos that accompanyed a news article I read last week.  There was a picture of three, proud avowed atheists grinning over the popularity of their recent media ventures.  What were they pleased about?  They had organized athiests to plaster a specific proclamation across the sides of city buses all over the world- 800 buses in England, alone.  The pictures of city buses were:  one bus by the Brandenburg gate in Germany, one in Barcelona, Spain, and one in Toronto, Canada.  What was the same proclamation, respectively, in German, Spanish, and English on these buses?   Simply this: THERE'S PROBABLY NO GOD.  NOW STOP WORRYING AND ENJOY YOUR LIFE. 

This same group of atheists is now challenging teenagers to take the "blasphemy challenge" to publically renounce "any belief in the sky God of Christianity."  Psalm 2 tells how God reacts to these kind of people who want to dismantle the last remnants of Judeo-Christian faith remaining in our culture.  This is how God regards these people who spin deceptive webs to destroy faith in God:  ...The peoples plot in vain... against the LORD and against his anointed, saying, 'Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.' He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.  Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury... Psalm 2:1-4 

In nature, spider webs show evidence of God's wisdom in design and beauty.  On the other hand, trusting in the deception of man-made webs brings frightening consequences that last for eternity.  God will not be mocked.

Finding Significance

I've always been a paper pack rat.  I've kept newsclippings, wedding invitations, post cards, notes, teaching outlines, photos, journals, and other stuff that have been meaningful to me.  Throughout the years, I've been methodical about caring for these scraps of paper, my archives of past events.  I've punched holes into the side of each document that I've found worthy of keeping and entered them into a loose leaf notebook.  Dozens of these notebooks are upstairs in a closet.  In addition to my own memorabilia, I have possession of the old diaries of my mother-in-law and of my mother.  Over the years I have been tempted to discard these archives of the past, but I haven't.  More than once I've wondered about the purpose of keeping all of this.

It is said that when a person dies, especially an older person, an entire library of knowledge is gone.  And so it is!  But until that time, each of us carries a richness of life expeiences that make us who we are.  And those experiences are often what we share with other people in conversation or in other ways.  For myself, I find writing and artwork to be an outlet for reflecting upon the experiences and truths that God has blessed me with over a lifetime.

Lately, I've been going through my archives and jotting down notes to remind me of events and people from the past and then discarding the original documents.  My notes take up a lot less room than the documents.  There is significance in each document, a meaning to why I kept the scrap of paper.  For instance, in the above picture you can see a postcard of the girl scout camp where I was a counselor, my wedding invitation, a newspaper clipping of when I worked on the high school yearbook, an e-mail from my daughter-in-law as she awaited the birth of her first child, a picture of my husband receiving his warrant officer rank, and various other items.

All of us long to find meaning to our lives.  I think that is why I have kept my own personal archives.  As I am reviewing and consolidating my scraps of papers lately, I take note of the meaning of each item. At this time in my life, I find significance in how richly God has blessed me with people I have known and insight I have gleaned from the past.  I hope that these memories will be the means by which I can bless others in my attempts to write words of spiritual encouragement.

"Great are the works of the LORD, studied by all who delight in them.  Full of splendor and majesty is his work."  Psalm 111:1-3 

When I review the richness of my life, look at the marvels of nature, or read of Jesus Christ in the Bible, I cannot help but recognize God's work of splendor and majesty.  There is something to be said for pausing to study God's work in our lives (even in the hard times), His work in the natural world, and His redeeming work on behalf of mankind through Jesus.  It is in recognizing God's hand in everything that we find our life's greatest meaning and significance.