Disentangle Decisively
Reflection
While walking around the neighborhood during the last few months, I have seen an extraordinary number of spider webs. Spun between trees, hanging off light poles, and strewn across bushes, the sheer volume and enormity of these webs had me thinking about E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, a childhood favorite, while simultaneously feeling both amazed and creeped out by their presence everywhere. Through conversations with others and subsequent online research, I learned that Joro spiders have been more prevalent in Georgia this year. The colorful, large spiders can grow to four inches and weave webs up to six feet in diameter. Yikes!
This past week, I grabbed a broom to sweep the deck scattered with eager fall leaves. No sooner had I opened the door when I was hit on the face and arm with a thick spider web. Didn’t see that coming! I brushed it off my arm and face, and brandished the broom to the suspended web. No fool now, I hunted down any other webs in sight. A few steps in front of me I saw three webs, one of which was stretched from the hanging lights to the deck railing. They were in the corners up high and in the corners down low. Seemingly overnight, they had invaded my home. My response was passionate, driven, and a tad relentless. The broom that was supposed to sweep up brown leaves instead battled the stubborn webs that would not capitulate! They were tough and sticky, requiring purposeful action to eradicate them.
Application
The experience with the pesky webs on my deck made me think about how easily I run into them if I am not careful or intent upon finding them and how hard it is to remove them. Likewise, the sin that so easily entagles us, as Hebrews 12 states, must be stripped way with endurance and persistence.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” (Hebrews 12: 1-3 NIV)
The ‘great cloud of witnesses” refers to the heroes of our faith found in the 11th chapter of Hebrews. We have their example in scripture as encouragement to run the race God has set before us by removing everything that stands in the way. The Message version of the Bible calls it the ‘parasitic sin.’ Sin that clings and eats away at what is right and good in the sight of God. We must keep our eyes ‘fixed on Jesus,’ the only way to keep sin at bay.
Closing
Just as ridding my deck from clingy webs requires swift action with a broom and persistence in removing all lingering parts of it, so must we decisively determine to disentangle ourselves from sin. We must whack it away, committing ourselves to remove anything that keeps us from the author and perfecter of our faith. Sin is sticky. It holds on tight. With confession and our eyes peeled on Jesus, we can begin to address sin as the Holy Spirit convicts us. Rather than let it live metaphorically in our home, let’s choose to disentangle decisively.
Maryellen Berry