Sitting in a tight circle with my new teammates, I saw an image of a spider web, beautifully woven, covered in dew. We were practicing ‘listening prayer’, a time of sitting in stillness and silence before the Lord, asking for words and visions for ourselves and others, to hear what He wanted to say to us. It was a time to see more of who God is, more of who we are, and experience a moment of raw conversation with the King of the world. This was all so extremely new to me and pushed me further outside of my comfort zone than I had ever been. I had never heard from the Lord before (at least that’s what I thought), and I had never asked Him to speak to me in such a bold and clear way. It’s scary to think that you might mess it up, not hear anything at all, or falsely say that a word was from God. The first 15 minutes of this was nothing short of terrifying, my chest was in a knot and I didn’t feel any earth shattering words falling on me, which was discouraging. During a portion of this time, my teammates were asking the Lord what He wanted to say to a teammate, not knowing it was me. I didn’t even know it was me. No one knew who we were asking God for a vision for, yet we still earnestly sought God’s heart for them. As words, images, verses, and encouragement were shared, the knot in my chest began to loosen. I was overcome with peace and my soul wasn’t anxious, but refreshed.
As I listened to teammates say what they were hearing, they pinpointed what I was nervous about, excited for, and asking of God. The more that was shared, the more I felt the presence of the Lord, and was confident that this was a necessary and beautiful part of a relationship with God. It became less confusing and it was suddenly so simple and natural. As we were praying, I asked the Lord to speak to me in any way He chose. I saw a spider web. I had no idea what it meant, and didn’t know how to find a parallel between the image and my life. I put it in my back pocket and told myself I would dive into it deeper when I got a chance.
Today I literally googled “cool facts about spider webs.” Did you know that a Darwin Bark’s Spider web is THE STRONGEST fiber on earth? It’s 10 times stronger than Kevlar, so like.. bullet proof vests, and up to six times stronger than steel? The spider builds its web across rivers and lakes stretching 25 meters from shore to shore. The spider is 1.5 cm in body size and weighs half of a gram. It’s tiny!!
Romans 1:20 For his invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.
The Lord’s power is so clearly displayed in this spider’s web: it’s stronger than bullet-proof vests, it’s more durable than steal, and it can cover distances 1600 times its size. If that doesn’t clearly display power and strength to you, I don’t know what does. That the Lord would give me this picture in such a vulnerable moment is so sweet. What better way for Him to say to me, “I am strong enough to protect you from much stronger things than bullets, I can be your strength and your refuge. You are tiny, and I am incredible and giant. And you are sealed with the promise of My Spirit” than this?
