SCL

Let’s be clear here, I’m not afraid of spiders, I’m just not a fan.

There’s a difference. Fear would have me on a chair in the living room if I saw a spider casually strolling across our television like some 8 legged harbinger of doom. And I don’t do that, regardless of what my wife might tell you.

It’s not that I find them terrifying, I just can’t get behind any creature that seems to delight in biting you. A bee will only sting you if provoked. A cockroach is content in the dark. A mouse saw that box of Frosted Mini Wheats you weren’t using and got opportunistic. A spider? A spider will bite you while you’re asleep.

What’s that all about? I get that when we’re both awake, all is fair in love and I’m going to squish you with a rolled up issue of Guideposts magazine. But while I’m sleeping? That’s just a thrill bite. That’s a crime of passion. That spider is biting me not out of necessity but out of love for the game. And that’s just not cool.

Knowing spiders get down like that is part of the reason it was so hard to sleep peacefully the first week I stayed in Costa Rica. I was there for about four weeks during my junior year of college. I was staying with a family that had carved out a small “bedroom” under the stairs. In addition to a blanket that covered a hole in the wall and a parrot that would yell Spanish names at 6AM every morning (Hectorrrrrrr!!!!), there was a tribe of spiders I shared the room with.

The wall directly behind my bed was exposed brick, hastily stacked together. There were two inch gaps between the jumbled bricks and in those gaps a squadron of arachnids had established quite a little society. (Based on their social interactions I would say they were in that pre-empire stage, where there’s one central city located by my pillow and smaller hamlets spread about my ankles.)

Every night I would come home, click the light on and watch them slowly back into the corners of the wall, slightly annoyed that I had disturbed their dark interactions. Then I would cover myself with bug spray, pretend that spiders were affected by bug spray, and then lay in bed, waiting to hear my hairy legged neighbors scamper back out of their hiding holes.

At first it was difficult to sleep with dozens of spiders, but like most things in life, I was able to get used to it. By the end of the trip you could have thrown 100 more spiders in that room and it wouldn’t have fazed me. To tell you the truth, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed. I was so full up on spiders that I had long passed my threshold. I had reached spider saturation. Whether there were 50 spiders in there or 200 spiders didn’t really make a difference.

I was proficient in spiders at that point, in the same way that I was proficient in Spanish, but apparently I’ve lost that numbness to the 8 legged bugs. The other night, while we were having dinner, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a spider crawl across the table toward my daughter. I yelled, or shrieked depending on who you ask, and swatted at it with a napkin.

And then, having protected my family from what was probably a Brown Recluse, Black Widow or simple house spider carrying eight mini switchblades, I started to wonder about that reaction. How could I sleep with 100 spiders but freak out when I saw one on the kitchen table? What happened to me?

What happened to me is the same thing that is happening to me with lust. Back in the day when I was neck deep in porn and sin, I had reached my threshold with lust. I was digesting so many vulgar images, ideas and content that I became immune to a lot of things. An article in GQ called “Cool Things that Hot Girls Wear” wouldn’t have fazed me because it was simply one more spider in a bed already jam packed with spiders. I wouldn’t have batted an eye because I was so desensitized. I was so numb and callus to all things lust that I wouldn’t have even noticed that as possibly something I shouldn’t look at.

But lately, as I’ve actively pursued a life with Christ and worked to eliminate the spiders from my life, I’ve started to notice little things again. Now, when something that years ago would have just been one more spider in a room crowded with spiders, enters my life, I notice it. Like that spider on the kitchen table, it feels out of context and big. It feels like something that doesn’t belong there. And whether that means ripping a cover off of Rolling Stone so I can still enjoy the record reviews without learning the inner workings of Lady GaGa’s mind or realizing I need to apologize to someone after I’ve gossiped, the little things are starting to matter.

I’m not perfect. I’m far, far, far, far from that. There are still areas in my life where I feel like God kicks over a whole nest of spiders I didn’t even know I had and we sit down to talk about it. But of the two ways to walk through life, clear headed and spider conscious or drunk on sin and sleeping with the spiders, I can tell you which one I prefer.

How about you? Are you at a point right now where you’re covered with spiders or are you noticing if a single spider tries to casually stroll across the kitchen table of your heart?

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