Most of my family’s outdoor walking or hiking in Kenya is limited to well known paths and pre-selected locations in the highly visible savannah. After all, with animals that can eat you running around looking for lunch, adventuring off the beaten track is not very wise. Arriving at my parents’s house in the Midwest I saw the opportunity to help my boys see a different kind of trekking and a different kind of nature.
Finding a wooded trail along the bluffs of the Mississippi River we set out for a short adventure. It wasn’t long before all three boys kept insisting that I walk first. After making sure they knew that a deer would not jump out and eat them, I led the way. It wasn’t long before I realized why.
I kept running into a slightly sticky strand of spider web. If you’ve been through a forest trail you can appreciate the situation. You’re out there enjoying the scenery and seeing life as created by God and all of a sudden, Bam! A line of web is pressing against your face. If it had been the whole web of course it would have been noticed before walking into it, but since it is merely a strand of silky entrapment, it blended into the environment perfectly without detection. It’s not enough to destroy the day, but as you step back to peel the lone clinging line from your face, it can lead to two main questions. The first being, why could I not see this before I ran into it. The second, and perhaps more pressing question, just where is the spider now?
Now, having scraped the webs from my beard, I am alone in reflection as I more cautiously move forward through webs of deceit embedded into an environment of Truth.
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” —Jesus (John 14: 6)
nehrely there 