Joy in the Weaving

"that you may be mature and complete"

James 1:4

Can you see that alright?  It's a spider's web.  I saw it a back issue of National Geographic, and I was just fascinated.  It's the web of the Golden Orb Weaver, a spider that lives in Australia, Asia, Africa and parts of the United States.  Their webs can be as much as three feet across!

Take a good look at the web, and the pictures below it.  The web has been highlighted in color, to correspond with the pictures below.  Too bad the spider doesn't really weave it in colors.  That would be amazing, wouldn't it?  But anyhow, the way National Geographic has illustrated this web, shows the work that the spider ~ let's call her "Charlotte" ~ has gone to.  It took an extraordinary amount of work on her part.  The part of the web highlighted in red is the outline, providing structure and support.  The yellow are the radii, to hold the auxiliary spiral (the green), and then the sticky spiral is laid over, followed by a non-sticky hub where Charlotte waits for her dinner.

What impressed me about all this work is how long it must take.  And it seems like the same thing over and over.  Like, if you were Charlotte, being shown how to create a web, you might respond, "Again?  I just went over the whole thing!  Can't I do all the steps at once?  It would be done so much faster!"  But no, it doesn't work like that.  Each step has its own goal, and must be done in its own order, no matter how tedious.  But the result will be worth the effort.   And I think the illustration God has for us in this creation of His, is about the work He is doing in our lives.  

James writes, in chapter 1, about trials, and you can tell he's talking about long-term trials, or repeating trials.  Trials test our faith, but that will produce perseverance, which will lead to our being mature and complete.  With any of the steps omitted, the web would be incomplete, and lacking.  And it would not do its job.  When we're living through a long-lasting trial, or undergoing a trial when it seems like we've just finished one, we can know God is hard at work in us.   "How much longer?" we think.  Especially when we are eager to learn.  I can give myself to Him, wanting to be changed, grown and matured, and yet the trial continues.  What does He want from me?  

What He wants, is patience.  Verse 4 says "Let perseverance have its perfect work..."  Let it happen.  This trial was accomplishing something different a few weeks, or a few months ago, than it is now.  Each day, or week, or sometimes every hour or moment of a painful trial, has a purpose.  Consider it pure joy, indeed.

~ "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, 

whenever you face trials of many kinds, 

because you know that the testing of your faith 

produces perseverance.  

Let perseverance finish its work 

so that you may be mature and complete, 

not lacking anything." ~

James 1:2-4