From Darkness to Light

Yesterday afternoon I changed the brake pads on the van. When I pulled off the first wheel, to my surprise, I had uncovered a large black widow spider living on the brakes. I called the kids over there and showed it to them, warning them of black widows. Attached is a photograph I took of this unwanted traveling companion just before I killed it.

Now I never would have dreamed that a spider could have lived in such a place, especially since it gets so hot there from the friction, but there it was! It was apparent that it was pretty well off from its size and extensive web works. Hidden from the world behind a wheel, it lived out its mission to kill lost and unsuspecting bugs. Before I finally knocked it to the ground and squished it, I just watched it for a while. Even while I was taking its picture, it was oblivious of my presense and kept working on strengthening its web.

There is no telling how long we have been driving around with a black widow. My youngest daughter asked me if it could have laid eggs in the van. That is a scary thought! Darkness is a magnet for creepy things. If you roll over an old log, you will find roaches, centipedes, and scorpions. But the light repulses these creatures and they flee from it.

We, too, were once hiding in the darkness just like this black widow. Peter wrote, "proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." John said in 1 John 1:5, "God is light and in Him is no darkness at all." Before the light of God shone in our hearts, we loved the darkness, but we know the hope of God's grace and have passed from dead to living, from blind to seeing.

Now as much as I don't like black widows I have to remember that God created them and that our God is a redeeming God. I believe that one day in the future, closer and closer it comes, that Jesus will shine a special healing light on the poisonous spiders and heal them from their treachery. Romans 8:21 says, "creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." This is the time when babies will play with the once poisonous serpent, and the lion will sleep with the lamb without attacking it. This is the long-awaited 1000 year reign of Christ, in which the devil is bound and He is the sovereign ruler of the earth.

Praise God who conveyed to us his heart transforming love and will one day also heal this earth!


---Johnie