Spider Web

There it was…in the early morning sunlight.
An orb spider had made a perfectly formed web.
The way the sun was coming through the trees, each strand was illuminated.

When an orb spider makes a web it floats a line on the wind or a breeze from one location to another.
Then, after it secures the line, it drops another line from the center, forming a “Y”.
It then radiates out, making non-sticky lines, before making the sticky lines in the center.

The orb spider has three claws.
The third claw allows the spider to walk on the sticky part of the web.
An unsuspecting insect will be caught in the sticky lines, bitten with a quick bite and wrapped in silk.
If a venomous insect is caught, it will be wrapped first, then bitten.

The web was truly an engineering marvel.
How I wanted to walk over and inspect it and see how many insects were caught.
I didn’t dare intrude.

The spider web’s design was so intricate, it reminded me of lace.
Only an awesome Creator God could intelligently design such perfection.

I pondered the concept of intricacy.
I happened upon that spider web…but what if I hadn’t?
How many simply exquisite things are all around us every day, but they are often hidden, camouflaged…perfectly blended into nature as only God could do?

The Lord does whatever pleases Him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths. He makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth; He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from its storehouses. (Psalm 135:6,7)

Our Creator God created everything for His good pleasure.
The wonder of that truth is that His creation gives us pleasure as well.

The spider web serves a purpose for the orb spider.
The spider web simply made me smile, and marvel, and praise Him.

Beauty in fragility.
Intricacy in simplicity.
His good pleasure and mine.

The form and function of the web astounded me.
It was engineered meticulously between two trees.
What if I had walked between those trees?
We all know what it feels like to walk into a spider’s web.

Such is the destiny of all who forget God; so perishes the hope of the godless. What he trusts in is fragile; what he relies on is a spider’s web. He leans on his web, but it gives way; he clings to it but it does not hold. (Job 8:13-15)

God uses the object lesson of the spider web in His word to show us the fragility of trusting in anything else but Him.
Nothing else will hold us or sustain us.

Isn’t it just like Him to explain this truth to us using things in nature to help us understand?

Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rains came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rains came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.
(Matthew 7:24-27)

Rock…Sand…Spider web.
Only One will hold.

Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord is the Rock eternal. (Isaiah 26:4)