No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (I Corinthians 10:13)
I remember the story of an old deacon who always seem to pray the same prayer. He always ended his prayer with, “and Lord, clean the cobwebs out of my life.” It got to be such a habit, it really irritated people. Of course, the old man meant he wanted the Lord to get rid of the things that really shouldn’t be there in the first place since they gathered in his heart during the week.
Still, people got imitated by it. So much so that one Sabbath, after his favorite take out the cobwebs speech, an elder spoke up and said, “Forget the cobwebs already! Kill the spider!”
Isn’t that what needs to be done in our lives?
We seem often to have one habitual sin that we keep asking forgiveness for, week after week, and never seem to be able to resist it during the week. In Hebrews 12, the apostle says “let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.”
“The sin which doth so easily besets us” in the original reads “the well stood arounded sin.” It’s that little something you still sort of indulge in, you’re ashamed afterwards, but it’s so comfortable, so much a habit, you just let it slide until it’s time to pray, and you ask forgiveness. Knowing He will, because He is faithful, but making no effort to stop the thing that is haunting you and makes you feel like a failure. Maybe it’s snapping at your kids, or your spouse. Maybe it’s being tardy consistently at work, stealing just a couple minutes of the boss’s time every day, or going a little too fast in the 35 mph zone. You know, little defects.
Perhaps we been asking for God to clear the cobwebs when what we need to do is ask him to kill the desire to give into the temptation. That spider of selfishness in our lives needs to go.
Do you have an arachnid problem in your soul? God is a great exterminator!
If a man cannot be a Christian in the place he is, he cannot be a Christian anywhere. – Henry Ward Beecher