Guest Speaker and Exterminator

My Thursday got off to an early start as a “guest speaker” at the High School girls’ morning Bible study which started at 6:15 am. Before anyone in the USA gets any ideas, I’m only available to do guest speaking in other countries (ok, maybe I’ll make a FEW exceptions) and even then only if necessary… I would much rather be cooking, helping with dental stuff, or anything else… Anyway, the girls were a great audience, being as attentive as possible that early in the morning, although after my lesson they would probably agree that I should stick to cooking over speaking. Since I had to prepare for the Bible study this week, I thought I would share some of it here… “Walking with God today and trusting the future to Him” from Colossians chapter 1 with a focus on verses 9-12: “For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; Strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness; Giving thanks unto God the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:” The lesson also included several devotional readings from Oswald Chambers’ book My Utmost for His Highest, which God has used in my life to continually challenge and encourage me to trust Him completely. Here’s one that I shared called “The Graciousness of Uncertainty: …To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, we do not know what a day may bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness; it should be rather an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. Immediately we abandon to God, and do the duty that lies nearest, He pack our life with surprises all the time. When we become advocates of a creed, something dies; we do not believe God, we only believe our belief about Him. Jesus said, “Except ye…become as little children.” Spiritual life is the life of a child. We are not uncertain of God, but uncertain of what He is going to do next. If we are only certain in our beliefs, we get dignified and severe and have the ban of finality about our views; but when we are rightly related to God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy.” While I was busy guest speaking at the Bible study, little did I know that I would soon have the opportunity to practice what I was “preaching.” When I got back to my house after the Bible study, I had plenty of time to eat breakfast before heading off to the dining hall for a morning of cooking. But as I was sitting at my table eating, I noticed that the kitchen floor had been invaded by tiny ants and they were spreading into the living room as well. So I got up from breakfast and went looking something to use to get rid of the ants. Of course I didn’t have any ant spray or poison in the house (If you’ve read all my blogs, you’ll be relieved to know that I now have bug spray for cockroaches that kills scorpions too, just in case one of them gets into my shower again… but it doesn’t work for ants). I found some glass cleaner though, with a strong ammonia smell, so I decided to give that a try. Well, it worked! I’m not sure if the chemicals killed the ants or if they just drowned in all the liquid I sprayed on them, but they died and my floor was clean and shiny. Crisis number one solved before 8 am… The rest of my day was busy with dining hall work all morning, drama class and piano lessons in the afternoon, then serving dining hall supper by myself, as usual. I got back to my house around 7 and soon found another invasion of larger ants crawling in and around my kitchen sink. The glass cleaner worked like magic again and I sprayed a lot around my door to hopefully keep all ants away. By the time the generator shut off and all lights went out, I was exhausted and ready for bed. So I turned on my flashlight, pulled back my sheets, and to my horror saw a HUGE spider beside my pillow (fyi: it was not a tarantula, I have one living on the outside of my house so I know what those look like). I thought a scorpion in the shower was bad enough, but here was a potentially poisonous spider in my bed, and I was in the dark, by myself with no Brazilian housemate around to help me kill it… interestingly enough during this third insect crisis of the day, God brought to mind the Bible lesson I taught that morning. Talk about not knowing what a day may bring forth… and trusting God in uncertain circumstances with joyfulness :) Well, God saw me through that final crisis safely, as the spider was knocked off my bed and onto the floor using one of my trusty Old Navy flip-flops again… then the cockroach/scorpion spray was liberally used on the offending spider as it tried to escape and I watched with joy (and maybe some glee or revenge?) as it crumpled into a dead little ball. The trusting God with my future part came when I had to fall asleep in the same bed where a large and maybe poisonous spider had been lurking only moments before and might have “friends” in the area… Again God was faithful and I woke up the next morning alive and well with this story to write about :) So from guest speaking, to killing ants, to cooking and teaching, to killing more ants and spiders, my future may be uncertain, or even the next day or hour, but I’m grateful for my lesson of the day… the one thing that is certain- Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.