One of my favorite places to talk with Jesus is out in nature. I feel that the trees give me a canopy of privacy that allows me to literally voice my cares to God out loud. This one day, I had found the place I wanted to sit and speak with God at, but as I began to pour out my heart I was distracted by a spider that was building a web. Not liking spiders and having experienced the pain of a spider bite, I grabbed a nearby stick and wrecked his web.
As I went back to my conversation with God, He directed my attention back to the little spider. He had gotten back up again and picked up right where he left off. My stick that took out the entire web that he had worked so hard on did not deter him in the least. You see, God and I were discussing something that wrecked my little world, and I was not sure what to do, and God had sent that little spider to teach me a lesson about perseverance.
Sometimes God wrecks our world, sometimes we wreck our own world, and sometimes an outside force wrecks our world. We cannot sit and mope about our plans being ruined. We can cry about it, but we are not supposed to stay in that state of despondency. We are to get up and go again.
If God has knocked out our plans, maybe we need to be still for a moment to seek what He has in mind and then change how we are building, but still keep going. Once we know what God wants of us our job is to get to it. 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 tells us that we are all to build our faith (our spiritual house) but what we build with will be tested with fire. So sometimes God tests our faith with fire to show us what really needs to be there.
When we wreck our own world, that one is a time to STOP what we are doing, and we need to turn and find God. Once He shows us how to fix it or where we should be again, we are to get moving in the direction that He gives, sometimes leaving where we were and going to a different place.
For something else destroying what we were working on, we need to pause and pray to make sure what wrecked it was not one of the above (God or ourselves) and if God still points to what we were doing, then we need to be like the little spider and get back up and get right back to it. When God is with us we can persevere through any and all trials that come our way if we just stick with Him.
Sometimes doors close, so ask God who closed the door and if He is still asking you to knock on it or not. Once you know God’s path and direction for you, get back up my friend and build that house. If God is for it, nothing can stand against it. Just make sure God is the one directing the plans.
The truth is, we keep going with God no matter what. The door may change, He might call us to walk through the hallway for a bit, but we stick with God and not let anything prevent us from getting back up and working on our relationship with Him. Be a spider and keep at it!