I am …. no, I used to be terrified of spiders. Not that long ago I was terrified of spiders. When you have children, you have to start putting a brave face on. So I’ve slowly been acclimating myself to a world with spiders. 

And they aren’t that bad. In fact, you should be nice to them. Not cuddly. Just polite. They aren’t the worst thing. Spiders are actually quite useful. There’s a book about it. “Be Nice to Spiders” by Margaret Bloy Graham. It is a wonderful read. 

I live in a home where there are gnats. I’ve tried everything I can do to get rid of the gnats, but they persist. They mostly hang out in my bathroom. In the morning when I get up I stretch my hands and arms by clapping gnats out of existence. 

My parents visited not long ago, and my Dad gave me some gnat advice. “Try keeping a spider.” My innards recoiled. 

Last Wednesday I visited a zoo program with my children. The zoologists brought a tortoise, a lizard, a snake and a tarantula to show. They gave a multitude of interesting facts about Rosie the Chilean Rose Tarantula. Rosie was paraded around so everyone could get an up close look. Rosie mostly wanted to take her nap in peace. 

Spiders stay to themselves. Gnats don’t. Spiders don’t want to touch you or your food. Gnats do. They want to spread their bacteria and germs over everything. 

My girls and I were baking cookies a few days later. A little blur swam into my vision, and I thought it was a gnat. I swatted at it. My girls were pressing close around me, when onto the cookbook that we were all peering at there fell a tiny jumping spider. It had been in my hair. I grabbed the first thing my hand found and smashed it with the baking soda can. That was instinctual. Some actions are hard to untrain. 

Today, I was vacuuming my little home. There, in my bathroom, was Mr. Spider. A generic house spider with thin legs. I left him alone. He can live there. (Under the sink near the shower, in case you want to keep an eye on him while in my bathroom.) I hope he gets some gnats. He’s not as bad a thing as I have always thought him to be. Spiders aren’t the scariest creatures anymore. I’m acclimating. 

There are a few more things in my life that, with acceptance and patience and trust in a sovereign God, won’t be as scary in a few years. Keeping eyes focused on Christ. 

Cheerful Giving

 I remember a night hot and sticky, after a hard day at work for both her and I. Stressed out, we headed out into the setting sun, a gift card in my pocket. A short eight minutes later we were sitting in a Tex Mex restaurant, a chain, nothing special, but special to us. We rarely went out. They were having a deal, all you can eat enchiladas, and I ordered one for us to share. The waitress glared at us. It wasn't what was done. $6.99. The gift card would cover it, and we didn't care, tonight was our fun night, the time we could unwind.

We talked and laughed and vented and solved the world's problems and ate a pint of salsa and all the chips, a huge bowl. They were good chips. The waitress came back and gave us another bowl. She glared. We didn't care, we ate that bowl too. The enchilada plate came out and there were two of them, it was perfect.

That waitress came back and glared, asked if we wanted dessert. "No thanks" my sister said. She stomped away and started whispering to another waiter. Sliding the check balance on the table, she didn't say a word. My sister and I couldn't stop laughing. We didn't mind if it wasn't what was done. I put the gift card, $10, and a bill on the table. We left without waiting for change, tearing out so we didn't see that grumpy waitress walk to her table and pick up a twenty.    

Sometimes God calls you to hard places. Well, they are hard to you. And then He makes you wait in those places, so that you can listen to Him. So that He can work, for His glory. 

I have a hard time listening. My self is always speaking to me. When I'm in a hard place, waiting in that difficult place, my self says things such as,

"Don't worry, this will soon end because you'll get some other assignment. 

In the future, when you have your "that home", with your "that" relationship, and your "that" job, that will make this go away."

I've done this multiple times in my life. When things get hard, I drop it. When circumstances are not comfortable, I make plans for my future comfort. 

Earlier this week I was doing an exercise in a Bible study book. It asked a simple question. 

Who are you praying will accept the Lord as their Saviour? Write at least five names down. 

Before you go further, do that thing. Write their names down, and write them down whether you really pray for them or not. Who do you know who doesn't know the Lord? 

This convicted me of something. 90% of the people that I should be praying for, that I know are lost, are people in the difficult place. 

And I don't pray for some of them. 

And the others I don't pray for enough. 

But I'm with them every day. 

They don't know the forgiveness that is found in Jesus. 

I should pray.

And I should stay. 

Being a Christian means sticking with circumstances and people who don't feel like blessings. It means being poured out. It means following Him, to the cross; that is where He went. It means staying, it means praying. 

Now if I was not convicted enough to pray, to make my current circumstances my mission field, tonight I read this below from John MacArthur. 

"I always think of John Patton who went to the New Hebrides Islands to be a missionary. They were inhabited by man-eating cannibals. I mean, you know, that's a tough assignment. I mean, you go to...you know what I would have said. I would have said, "Lord, look, don't send me there, they'll eat me, you know, and you'll waste a good one. I mean, I graduated from seminary, right? I mean, send a guy that dropped out, they'll eat him, who will know? Or maybe he never would have made it anyway. Why send a good one?" But Patton went and he took his wife and they dropped him off and he rode to the shore and they built a little lean-to on the shore and how do you reach natives like that? They're cannibals, they don't speak your language. I mean, what do you do? You don't put up a sign in the sand that says, "BBS starts Saturday, bring your children," you know. What do you do?

Well you pray a lot, right? And night after night they stayed in that little lean-to and prayed and after he had been there a couple of months, his wife gave birth to a baby and the baby died and a few days later his wife died. And Patton said he buried their bodies and slept on the graves to keep the natives from digging them up and eating them. Now he's all alone. That's really coming to the end, isn't it? I mean, that's when the bottom line is drawn..do you stay or do you go?

Well he stayed. And the miracle of his life is that he stayed 35 years. And he said at the end of those 35 years, "I do not know of one single native on these islands who has not made at least a profession of faith in Jesus Christ." And he said, "When I came here I heard the cry of cannibals. As I leave, I hear the ringing of church bells." Is that incredible? But see, that's what can happen if you're willing to make the sacrifice. Not everybody will be a John Patton, but everybody can do the thing that God's called him to do if they're willing to pay the price. So being a testimony in the world, anybody can be a testimony, and you have to realize that there's a price to pay. If you're a Christian and you're really sold out to Christ, you're willing to pay that price. And it's not necessarily a one-time deal though, from now on I'll do it. You fight that battle all along, don't you? Whether you're willing to speak for Christ."

Last week a friend asked why I blog. I blog to remind myself of certain truths.  

So here is a thought on the gift of singleness. Oftentimes I feel the blessing of my single years. I use the word oftentimes because it is now a little bit more than "sometimes" and still less than "all the time". It is a process. 

Singleness is an avenue in which I am dependent upon God.  The single state can be a trial - a fire, because you have to learn to rest and wait in a sovereign plan that you cannot see, and to be reliant on the Lord. I have seen, in my single years, God working to provide jobs, money when I needed it most, friendships, family relationships, and most importantly a foundation in Himself. Would my relationship with God have grown if I had married earlier? Perhaps. You don't choose how you grow, just if you do grow with the circumstances that you are given. 

I am studying I Peter in my devotions. Here it reads, in 1:7-9

"That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:  Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:  Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls." 

In singleness, I have to believe God. I have to rest in His promises, that His leadership in my life is for my ultimate good. I have to know God, for who He really is. Good, loving, kind, long suffering towards me in my failures. God is continually generous to me during this time to provide for my needs, and to remind me of His love for me. I don't see the immediate future, but I can see God. I can see the finish line, the end of the faith that is being built through this time.  

You see, I was once 

Alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works. Colossians 1:21

Without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. Ephesians 2:12

But God 

Loved me

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 1:4-6) 

Died for me

 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8 

Presently He 

Has made me spotless from sin 

And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it. Colossians 2:13-15

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I John 1:9 

I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah. Psalm 32:5

Is continually conforming me to Christs nature 

 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. Romans 8:29-30

Soon He will 

Come again for me 

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. John 14:3

Behold I come quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give every man according as his work shall be. Revelation 22:12

Create me complete in Christ 

That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. Ephesians 5:27

If you read God's words, you can agree with Paul when he wrote under inspiration, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ" Ephesians 1:2  

After all of these gifts, the blessings of this present world are an overflow, an outpouring of God's love in our lives. "Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over." Psalm 23:5

Singleness is always temporary. Marriage may suspend it here on earth for a while, but then there is eternity, where no one is single or married. And eternity is destined to be grand, to be beautiful, to be fulfilling. 

Dear friends of mine have an open floor plan home. Around the ceiling of their home, they have a rope. At one end of all this rope, for one inch, they have a strip of green. The rest of the rope is white. 

Green is our time here on earth. Brevity.  

White is eternity. This is consummation, completion, perfection in Christ. 

How gracious of God. To not only give us eternity with Him, fully complete in Jesus, fully in fellowship with God, but to start that process now, here, in this brief time we have on earth. In the middle of our longing, here is Jesus. Here is hope and peace for today and tomorrow. Look to the author and finisher of your faith.