Two weeks ago during church while the Epistle Lesson was being read, my niece Stephanie and I became distracted. Out of the corner of our eyes we noticed movement on the floor. Yes, it was one of those icky, hairy, scary spiders. Not your little, itsy, bitsy spider that crawls up the water spout, but a spider that makes your skin crawl. The spider continued his journey under the pew and disappeared from our sight. Where was he? What was he up to? Was he waiting to crawl on a sandaled foot and prompt a scream during church? Wouldn't that have been interesting! Steph and I immediately lifted our feet off the ground and held them up, and of course looking to see where this spider was going to end up. All the while we were missing the reading. After the Epistle came the Gospel reading and of course we had to put our feet down and stand up. We kept looking for that darn spider. I asked Steph "would it be wrong to squish a spider in church?" We were so caught up in that spider that we missed hearing God's Word. I thought about that later in the day. Isn't that just like Satan... to distract us so we don't hear God. We were so worried about what that spider would do to us that we didn't hear what God wanted us to hear!
~ 1 Peter 5:8 - 9a
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith...
I wasn't alert, I was distracted. Satan is prowling around looking to distract and devour us. We must resist satan's distractions. We must also resist being so focused on finding satan and what he's up to that we lose focus on God. Be alert, be steeped with the Spirit to discern what is God and what is satan. Do we become so vigilent in watching for Satan that we forget to focus on Jesus and miss what God wants for us? Are we so worried about whent the next attack will come that we become paralyzed with fear?
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
~ James 4:7
Satan will continue to prowl, he will continue to distract us that we can be sure of. What we can also be sure of is this: God won, God wins and with God we win! Be alert not distracted! The Lord your God is on your side!
9 comments:
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Real, is the love of Jesus and the safety net only He can provide.
Great analogy!
Love,
Yolanda
That was a great analogy, although I'm now paranoid looking around at my feet for creepy crawling things.;)
Your words are so true. Satan is the master of distraction. I know on my trip he worked overtime trying to distract me. Unfortunately he is very good at his job most of the time.
I am trying to stay focused on God and not my circumstances. I am a visual learner, so picturing him as a spider should help in my quest to quit focusing on him.:)
God Bless,
Amy:)
OK...so is that your hand holding your distraction? Better to leave the distraction to scurry on his way; that is unless, he's crawling on your body. Screaming and running away would then be fully and highly appropriate. As it is with the spider, so it is with our enemy.
peace~elaine
NO WAY! Not my hand.
Hmmm...never had this encounter or thought about it. I don't think twice about killing spider and creepy crawlies in my house but I'm not sure I could do that in God's house.
Curious...what kind of church do you attend? I'm unfamiliar of an Epistle lesson.
Blessings,
Paula
Great analogy. I had the same experience when I was in high school right as my first SAT exam began! Talk about distracted!
Good post, simple and to the point and you make a very good point. Just wanted to say...thanks for you comment on my post. I have been dealing with sorting through the rubble and realized over the past several months that I was wrong in many ways in my estimation of the church and of people, this I am sure of and my view of "Christians" has been marred dramatically because of the personal hits I took over and over again. The healing that needs to take place in my heart can only happen one on one with the Lord and I think I am back to the place where my trust is only in him.
Wow um there is no way I could have stayed there and just watched for him, Satan must distract me a lot with things like this, because I seem to miss things when they are around, I don't like spiders...
I love the way you talked to my heart today...
Connie
GBU
Great analogy Kristen. I HATE spiders and am soooo distracted by them, I too would have missed all the Scripture lesson while checking for the spiders whereabouts. Satan will use anything to keep us from focusing on God. "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you". James 4:7
Keeping my eyes on Him,
Joy
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