When I was posting Tuesday's entry to Danny's Diary, I knew what would happen next. If you'll recall, I made mention of the dreaded "FWD" that appears on the subject line of a lot of my e-mail.
You see, I have a lot of warped friends. They delight in tormenting me (of course, I'm not too shy when it comes to tormenting them, too) and just like I thought they would, those friends loaded my e-mail down with every "FWD" they could find. In the past two days, I think I've seen every petition that's ever been written, been encouraged to stop buying gas from every major supplier, and been told that if I don't keep the chain going, I'm going to cause some poor kid in a country I can't even spell not to get an education and so on and so forth.
But that's okay. One of those friends is still trying to find his bus key - the one that opens the bus bay door to where all of his equipment is. I could tell him where it is, but, I just don't feel the need to at this particular moment...
Naturally, everyone of those "FWDs" went into the trash - except one. This particular one that I'm about to share is actually very good food for thought.
You see, we live in a day and time where we're just too busy to pay attention to what God's doing for us. Most of the time, we can't even realize what God's doing in our lives until either it's too late or He has to hit us with a brick to get our attention. And when we decide we want to pay attention to God, we want to see Him respond in a big way. We're too full of ourselves to realize that when He moves in a little way, it's bigger than anything we could do ourselves. Let this tale put things into perspective for you...
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During World War II, a US marine was separated from his unit on a Pacific island. The fighting had been intense, and in the smoke and the crossfire, he had lost touch with his comrades.
Alone in the jungle, he could hear enemy soldiers coming in his direction. Scrambling for cover, he found his way up a high ridge to several small caves in the rock. Quickly he crawled inside one of the caves. Although safe for the moment, he realized that once the enemy soldiers looking for him swept up the ridge, they would quickly search all the caves and he would be killed.
As he waited, he prayed, "Lord, if it be Your will, please protect me. Whatever Your will though, I love You and trust You."
After praying, he lay quietly listening to the enemy begin to draw close. He thought, "Well, I guess the Lord isn't going to help me out of this one."
Then he saw a spider begin to build a web over the front of his cave.
As he watched, listening to the enemy searching for him all the while, the spider layered strand after strand of web across the opening of the cave. "Hah," he thought. "What I need is a brick wall and what the Lord has sent me is a spider web. God does have a sense of humor."
As the enemy drew closer, he watched from the darkness of his hideout and could see them searching one cave after another. As they came to his, he got ready to make his last stand. To his amazement, however, after glancing in the direction of his cave, they moved on. Suddenly, he realized that with the spider web over the entrance, his cave looked as if no one had entered for quite a while.
"Lord, forgive me," prayed the young man. "I had forgotten that in You a spider's web is stronger than a brick wall."
We all face times of great trouble. When we do it is so easy to forget what God can work in our lives, sometimes in the most surprising ways. And remember with God, a mere spider's web becomes a brick wall of protection.
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'Nuff said. Next week, it's back to Southern Gospel music.
