This morning I was horrified to wake up and see a black widow hanging outside my window spinning its web. The thing was huge … and scary! Big and black, its legs pointed like sharp needles. At first I wasn’t sure just what kind of spider it was — except the bad kind — but upon closer inspection it was undeniable. Hourglass on its back … ACK! Cringes up my spine. What’s up with that!
Immediately I thought of the other spiders I’ve been seeing lately. Around my house I’ve noticed tiny, tiny spiders that I figured were perfectly harmless and should get cleaned out … one day … when I get to it. Well, when I saw that black widow, it reminded me of, yes, another dream that I had about a year ago. I only remembered it because I wrote it down on my iPhone notepad and read it again not too long ago.
In the dream, I saw a small spider and its web. And then another one. Really small ones, just like the ones I’m talking about. And just like this, I ignored them figuring they were pretty harmless. Well, after passing up the little ones, I came to the ‘big mamma’ of them all. When I woke up I was getting that if I didn’t deal with the little spiders in my life, it’d create room for the big one. More than that, by not dealing with the little ones, I wouldn’t be able to handle the big one when it came.
It was a metaphor on life and specifically the lies we buy into. Small and subtle at first. Seemingly insignificant. But let them “take residence” and, yikes, before you know it you’re run over.
There are so many messages we get on a given day. God only knows how many influences we receive. Some stick, some we brush off (or think we do). Unfortunately, it’s the bad ones that seem to hold on stronger than the good ones, and that’s what all this spider action was about. Webs of deceit.
Because we’re so influenced by what we hear — whether it’s messages from those around us, or our own personal thoughts, or experiences — it’s easy to fall into unhealthy beliefs. Those beliefs when they take root, produce unhealthy habits and actions, and in the end distort our lives. Everything we do and even our entire identity starts with what we believe.
Take this hurricane for instance — hurricane Irene. Media loves drama so they build these things up like they’re some great and horrible catastrophe when it was only a level 1 storm, barely even making it into the hurricane category. All day Saturday, that’s all the news was reporting on as if you could talk about rain for 24 hours straight. It gets people worked up when there’s really nothing to worry about.
Life’s sort of the same way. Messages we receive that aren’t necessarily real can take a horrible root in our lives. Give place to it (ie. buy the lie) and it completely steals your joy. I like to think of it as the wizard in the Wizard of Oz. You remember. Dorothy and company walk into the wizard’s “throne room” and there’s booming fire and a big loud voice that sends all, especially cowardly lion, into a frenzy. But thanks to little Toto, he pulls the curtain away to find a feeble old man pulling levers and talking into some big mechanical contraption making himself “appear” larger than life, when he clearly wasn’t.
That’s what these lies are like. They’re powerless thoughts or imaginations that pin us down because we believe them. And if we’re not careful they’ll run us over. As I was getting ready this morning, I heard Christina Aguilera’s song “Beautiful” on the radio and thought to the words — “You are beautiful no matter what they say. Words can bring you down.” How many women really believe they’re beautiful? And how many guys really believe they’re approved and valuable?
Since the beginning of this year I’ve been volunteering my time at the Fairfax County Jail helping facilitate a class on Violence Intervention. It’s been amazing. Absolutely amazing. I keep on telling the guys there that I’m just as much a student as they are. There’s so much I’ve learned, even — or especially — from them. But one of my favorite exercises — if not THE favorite — is when we get to deal with our identities. In the “justice” system they get labeled as “criminals.” One guy pointed out he was told he’s a “career criminal”. When I heard that, that just made me mad. Because whatever label we’re given, if we believe it, we’re going to assimilate into it, whether it’s true or not. And chances are it isn’t. The system is just perpetuating people to act out on bad behavior because they’re being told, “This is what I am so this is what I do.”
Well, after I heard that I went home and found the names of every guy in our class, found out what their names meant, and printed each one out individually. If you remember back to What’s In a Name, all our names have specific meaning. The next time our class met, I handed each guy his name and prefaced it with this. “There are a lot of things people have said about you. A lot of labels we’ve all been given. The thing is, most of them are lies … if not all of them. Before you were ever given those labels, though, long before any of this stuff happened, you were given another label. And it’s more important than any of this. It’s your name. And it has a special meaning.” I went on to explain how I believe we were all born with purpose and destiny and that our names are not by chance. That they actually play a role in who we are and what we’re here for.
I’ve done this a couple times, in different classes, and every time the results are amazing. When the world has told them they’re failures, losers, and won’t amount to anything, their names tell them they’re “champions”, or “healed by God”. They say they’re “strong and courageous”, “protector of mankind”, “bearer of Christ”, a “new man” and that “God is my judge.” These are the kinds of things that have brought tears to some of them. Because they’ve been lied to their entire lives, they fell into bad choices. But hearing just for a moment who they really are changes that. Granted it’s a culmination of the entire class that brings change but with all the negativity in our world and the sensationalism and drama around us, it’s no wonder we get pulled off course. All of us. I can testify to that!
So addressing these spiders. Starting with the little ones and their webs of deceit. One little web here, another web there. Ignore them and next thing you know you’ve made a home for the big black widow. Get rid of them, though, and you’ll be amazed at what happens.
Believe it or not the reason I hadn’t killed the little spiders in my house is because I actually felt sorry for them! Can you believe that??! They’re living creatures and I figured they weren’t causing any trouble, right? Deception #1! Through all this I had a lesson to learn. We tell ourselves, “These things don’t mean anything. They don’t bother me.” Keep saying that and see what happens. So I went around the house and decided to finally squish the first one, then another, and another, and another, and before you know it I was tearing everything upside down on a spider-killing rampage! ; ) By the end of it, when I looked back at that black widow that terrified me so much at first, I just wanted to take a friggin’ 2 x 4 and blow it to smithereens! Knowing I needed to practice a little, err, wisdom with this one, though, I stopped and decided I’d better get some help from a trusty neighbor with a ladder. I could just see myself hanging precariously outside my window trying to kill a black widow and only end up making her mad. Which is pretty much how it works with the big ones. Getting rid of those requires a bit of humility and getting help from others you respect.
The point is that when we start dealing with these things, courage settles in. We don’t realize just how much “little” lies steal from us, but they do. Clearing them out, though, has the opposite effect and causes strength to rise. Give it a try.
This morning I did an assessment on my life — you know, where I am now and where I’m going. On the surface I was a little frustrated because it seemed like my past victories were so much greater than my present ones. Turns out, though, I was just looking in the wrong place. When I put everything on paper I was amazed. And it wasn’t the things that people look at or that I was striving for that made the list — you know, tangible accomplishments. It was the heart issues. Things deep down that get so easily pushed to the side. When it comes down to it, those are the things that matter most and, I’ll be honest, that’s what most of this past year has been about. Until you get those kinks out, I tell ya, you really can’t move forward effectively. Putting that in writing really helped me see that. They’re the small spiders. The stuff that hides in dark corners. Looking at the victories that I’ve had in coming past them has given me a new sense of joy and confidence I didn’t have. Understanding that those spiders have been dealt with lets me know I’ll be better equipped to handle big ones when they come.
