“When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.” Luke 11:24-26
My washer and dryer are in the cool, dark basement of my house. I visit it several times a day. You know…just to check on it, make sure it’s getting its exercise, and keeping clean. As I was heading past a pile of boxes that my hubby had to burn, I saw something black. After the surprise I got last year, I always take a careful look at anything that seems out of place. Sure enough, this wasn’t another false alarm. I had a snake. In my house. Noooo!
The boys were upstairs working hard on schoolwork, and even though I know they would’ve jumped at the chance to be manly men, I decided I wasn’t going to be a wimp about this situation. I admit that I came to this conclusion after I thoroughly checked it out and realized it was dead. It had even gotten stuck on some packing tape that was hanging from one of the boxes.
After ripping the tape off the box right behind the snake’s tail, I laid it into a smaller box to carry it upstairs. It was definitely giving me some goose bumps. I told the boys what I’d found, proceeded to get it out the door, sat it on the rocks, and went back to the table where my youngest was working.
It wouldn’t leave my mind, so I spun around on my chair to take a look at it again only to find it moving. IT WAS ALIVE!!! I just carried it from the basement and it was faking it the whole time. I thought it was dead! It could’ve bitten me. Now I was truly flipping out. Of course, this was a great adventure, especially for my oldest who then went running out to see what kind it was.
Do you ever feel like a situation happened, then God used that to show you something? Well, I might have received that message a while ago with some yellow jackets. I kept it and didn’t share it due to some insecurities that I thought were dealt with a while ago but popped back up just like the snake did. I realized tonight that if I don’t exactly listen the first time, maybe I’ll get a second chance to receive that message.
Please let me tell you about the yellow jackets. We had several that were constantly to the right of that same sliding door I took the snake out. I needed to get something from over there one day, and my hubby sounded a little panicky when he enlightened me that there were yellow jackets that could sting me. Thank you, Mr. Obvious. I informed him that I wasn’t bothering them, and they weren’t bothering me. It was true!
He decided to go on one of his missions to protect his family from harm that was facing us. The yellow jackets. He waited until a certain time at night, put on protective gear, and started spraying. He made it back alive. I went out the next day expecting not to see them, but that wasn’t the case. Hmmm. He tried it again with the same results. Next, I see a water jug filled with who knows what and a banana peel. Didn’t work. He decided the opening needed to be bigger. Nope.
The mission was heating up because there was a hole that he found. Spraying them was only temporarily solving the problem for a night, so he realized he needed to plug it up. He knew that would work, and it did. Every time I went outside, I was safe from the swarm of yellow jackets. A few days went by before I received my surprise. They were coming into the basement to die, but they weren’t completely dead yet! Where did they decide was their resting place? Around my washer and dryer.
This is what I learned. Those yellow jackets were like bad habits, insecurities, and all the things we know don’t belong around us but are there anyway. Do they actually attack when we’re not trying to get rid of them? Not really. The devil is quite happy the way things are when we aren’t trying to do anything about them. He likes those thoughts and other bad things that are swarming around dangerously, yet we don’t see the harm they could potentially cause.
When my hubby started spraying the yellow jackets, they flew away but just kept coming back when the hole was still available to them. They probably brought some friends too. He had to fill the hole so that there wasn’t a space left to welcome them. That was great, so what went wrong? The hole wasn’t cleared out before sealing it shut. They created more havoc before they were completely gone. They were actually more dangerous when they penetrated into our home. They stung!
The yellow jackets and the snake showed how dangerous it can be when we’re too lax about what gets into our home…into our thoughts, into our heart. We need to be careful that the holes are swept out and filled with something positive so we don’t end up worse than we started. Also, when we think those thoughts, habits, insecurities, and sins are dead, we need to be aware that we may not have truly snuffed it out all the way. That yellow jacket on the basement floor still stung my oldest. That limp snake I dismissed as harmless, could’ve easily bitten me.
I challenge you to replace the bad with something good. Certain things aren’t very good for me to eat. The list of what I should eat leaves me no room for the bad stuff. I’m too full of the healthy. What I eat is now a true choice because I’m not just hungry. When we say we aren’t going to have certain thoughts any more, I’m guessing that doesn’t necessarily work. It doesn’t usually work for me! I need positive thoughts to fill my mind, even if they’re written down and repeated so there isn’t any room for the negative to creep in.
It might not be easy, but it’s worth the extra work to finish the job. We don’t want our final condition to be worse than the first! Trust me…listen the first time. Don’t be stubborn and wait to have a lesson repeated.
