Lesson from Spiders

Written August, 2004.
Not to many days ago, we decided it was time to re-paint our porches. We have to do this once a year because shoveling snow so many times in the winter really scratches up and takes allot of paint off of the boards.
I was assigned the job of painting the back porch. I got the broom and swept all the dirt off, and then I pulled out the hose and began to spray the boards and railing.
Up here we have a certain type of spider that we call garden spiders. That's not their real, official name, but for some reason we call them that. Now these gardens spiders are some of our best friends-seriously-they're nice spiders. They might be big but they don't bite you if you're nice to them. Anyway, because they're so nice I don't like to kill them or chase them away, so there were lots and lots of spiders and webs all around that back porch. Since I knew the paint would kill them I tried spraying them down out of their webs so they'd run away long enough for the deck to dry and for me to paint it, but when I sprayed them they clung to their webs stubbornly, refusing to give up their nests. I tried to reason with them, which of course doesn't work between spiders and humans. I finally had to hand pick many of them and toss them away from the porch so they'd be saved, but by the time I got one side of the porch, the spiders from the other side were already climbing back up and crawling into their little coves or building new webs. I tried spraying the water on a higher power. Those spiders still hung on and it was quite a while before they'd go sailing from their nests, only to return. Finally I just sprayed as many as I could and decided the spiders that were so stubborn would just have to be that way, and hopefully when I'd start painting they'd run away. For some spiders, when they realized what woe was coming to them, after I began painting close to their webs, would quickly paratroop away, but others continued to stubbornly stay.
Is there something in this world that you're holding on to? Some sin, that seems to you, like you could never give up? Whatever sin or worldly thing you're stubbornly clinging to is really not worth it. Don't be like the spider, afraid to let go of something that is soon to perish, and by doing so, loose your own soul. Think of the spider and the lesson. Just like I knew what would happen if the spiders stayed in their comfortable homes and tried to rescue them, the Lord knows that if you stay one with the world, and hold on to the 'comforts' and 'pleasures' this world has to offer, you will have to meet with destruction in the end. Don't wait until the last moment. Heaven is cheap enough! Just think of the joy of seeing your redeemer face to face! Will you trade temporary things that don't give lasting pleasure for eternal bliss and happiness with the Savior?