CRITTERS

Tuesday morning I was sitting next to two students in a van as we headed off towards our classes. I couldn’t help but overhear their conversation. The guy shared with the gal about how he was staying in a motel in Hawaii one time and saw a centipede in his room. He was told that they can bite and cause quite an infection and so it concerned him. That night as he was ready to go to sleep, he saw a gecko, an indigenous lizard. He did not realize that it is a good thing to have a lizard in his room (they eat bugs). Unnerved and unable to sleep, he had the person at the front desk move him to another room.

Wednesday night, while reading email, a centipede walked across the air conditioning unit in my room. I’m used to growing up around cockroaches, ants, bees and spiders so it didn’t bother me. But at three in the morning, something ran across my chest, jumped on to the nightstand and then scampered towards the far wall. Now that woke me up and was rather freaky! I got up, turned on the light but could not see critters. I realized the bedspread was touching the floor making it very easy for anything to crawl into or across my bed, so I pulled the bedspread off and tried to go back to sleep. The next morning I asked the front desk what creatures they had in their place—mice, cockroaches, etc. The gal said she didn’t know of any mice or big bug problems but she felt terrible I had such an unpleasant experience. She volunteered that she would move me if only she had a free room! I told it was okay I’d stay where I was.

Meditation

Psalm 23:3—He renews my life; He leads me along the right paths for His name’s sake.

Thursday night—could I sleep not knowing what might come out or be lurking in the shadows? Psalm 23:3 provided the solution. God renews my life. He gives me the right perspective, strength and sleep. I don’t have to fear what I can’t see or catch, I have to trust the Replenisher. God knows my room—part of the right path for His name’s sake. Does that seem silly or out of place? Does He really get involved in as small a thing as room placement?

How can He lead us in the right direction if He doesn’t know or care where we are? Life is full of things that can bug us. So we have to make a choice—we either lose sleep over what concerns us, or we trust that the Lord is able to get us where we need to be. The test for rest is trust. Could it be that God allowed me to overhear a man’s bad hotel experience to measure my attitude? I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that to complain about the room or lay awake wondering, might be to question the path. Lord thanks for renewal. Please keep me You-focused.

Inspiration

So, then, mind-renewal first involves the daily willingness to let God teach us His perspective, so that it might become ours.—Margaret Thatcher in The Freedom of Obedience