As I looked out of our kitchen window this morning I noticed lots of tiny cobwebs on the lawn, made visible by the dew that had settled on them overnight. I have not seen so many before. The photos here only show one in relative close up and a few clustered together, but there are lots of them all over the lawn. There are some very busy little spiders in our garden. 

But I don’t think they will be catching many flies today. Not because I am mean and am going to cut the grass, but because the flies will be able to see where the webs are. Usually the fibres are gossamer thin and you only know they are there when you land on them (if you are a fly) or walk into them and get a face full. Today the flies know all about the webs and won’t be going anywhere near them.

Wouldn’t it be so much easier if the temptations and ‘traps’ we fall into were clearly marked? Wouldn’t it be so much better for us if they had flashing neon signs attached (the equivalent of dew on a web?) saying “warning!” That way we would not fall into them.

Except that God has provided us with a warning system. It’s called a conscience. And his Spirit sounds that alarm when we are in danger of falling into a temptation trap. That’s how he answers the prayer ‘lead us not into temptation…’ Our problem is not that there is no dew on the web (or neon sign) so much as that we sometimes are not paying attention to God or listening to our conscience, and sometimes we just simply want to be disobedient.

Unlike when a fly lands in a web, however, there are no traps, temptations or messes that God can’t retrieve us from if we turn back to him. He’s so gracious that his response isn’t “I warned you didn’t I?” – it’s “welcome back, let’s make a fresh start.”

Be blessed, be a blessing

PS sorry about the pun in the title!