During the summertime our home is often visited by uninvited guests. They sneak in, find a cozy corner, and scare the snot out of me.  They are ugly and dirty and unwelcome. You may have them too. I’m talking about spiders.

Think about the reaction you have when you find a spider crawling on your skin. Someone watching you might think you have lost your everloving mind. It’s a total freak-out moment. When I see a spider on the wall, it’s not as drastic, but still worthy of some yelling and spazzing.

Spiderwebs, on the other hand, are a little easier to deal with, as long as their spinners are not present. You can just wipe them away or suck them up with a nice and long vacuum attachment. There’s a problem with this though. You see, if you don’t kill the spider, the spiderwebs will just come back.

I recently read a book called Kill the Spider by Carlos Whittaker. Whittaker creates one of the most brilliant and powerful metaphors I have ever heard, and it has really challenged the way I think about outward behaviors and inner beliefs. Whittaker compares spiderwebs to negative habits and sins, and spiders to lies that have been birthed in our hearts somewhere along the way. We spend so much time and effort trying to clean up the cobwebs in our lives, but if we fail to kill the spider, the webs just come back.

The thing about spiders is that we don’t mind them as much if we can’t see them. That’s why they love the dark. We might see the evidence of them, but sometimes it is all-too-easy to just sweep the webs away and ignore the real problem. The first step to killing a spider is to shine light on it, then attack it with whatever tool is most effective.

As for those lies in the dark corners of our hearts, the first terrifying step is to shine a light in there and try to figure out exactly what we are facing. Satan, the “father of lies,” as Jesus calls him, is a master at whispering deceit to us, especially when we are young and vulnerable. He tells us we aren’t worthy, we aren’t loveable, we aren’t enough. And these nasty creatures spin all kinds of sin, self-harm, addictions, choices, habits.

So now that you have this lovely imagery, I highly recommend Whittaker’s book. Maybe this summer it’s your time to do more than just clean up cobwebs. Maybe it’s time to kill the spider.