Kill the Spider Read online

  Nancy was invaluable to us in that tiny room where we spent the week, but God the Father is with us in this massive room we call life.

  Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.

  EPHESIANS 6:10–18 ESV

  This Scripture used to overwhelm me. I think because it was used in such a macho way when I was growing up. All Christian illustrators would draw these He-Man-looking characters with their epic weapons. Massive bulging muscles wielding their weapons of the faith. I would always think, This is so not me. I am such a fairy Christian. I can barely push my lawn mower, much less carry all of that around.

  But as I approached my spider, the weapons that have been given to me in Scripture seem so much more ninja-like than he-man-like. And the most important weapon to get to the bottom of the “Where in the world is my spider?” question is the belt of truth.

  Nancy was setting all of us up in that room to put on the belt of truth.

  John 8:32 tells us that the “truth will set you free.”

  It’s so true! Think about it for a second. Where does a police officer keep his gun, walkie-talkie, handcuffs, maybe a Taser? On the belt. If the officer has no belt, he has to hold all the weapons with his bare hands, and that’s not gonna work. He suddenly loses eighty percent of his efficiency. (I totally just made up that percentage. Don’t look it up.) But you get it. The belt of truth gives you freedom to use the remaining weapons.

  So. Let’s put it on.

  What is your truth? Where did it go sideways?

  Get back to that place—to the truth. We are going to need that belt of truth before we can get anywhere else. We don’t want our pants falling down when the spider comes out to fight.

  Sharon cried a lot that week. She cried when we passed a butterfly on a bush. She cried when she saw the sunset. She cried when we said good-bye. In every one of her tears I could see the reflection of something—peace and the beginning of true healing.

  Who Might Be Part of Your Journey That You’re Overlooking?

  Being in Sharon’s family portrait and taking on the role of her grandpa was an unbelievably uncomfortable experience for me, but it really brought home the realization that we aren’t making this journey toward healing alone (which helps to explain that seventy percent Bill mentioned). There will be those who facilitate and those who catalyze and those who just stroke our hair as we fall apart. All of them are important to the process.

  •Who in your life could help you begin to locate your spider if you took the risk of opening up to them?

  •What is holding you back from allowing someone to help you through the rough spots of your journey?

  CHAPTER 6

  BALDERDASH

  Seeing what Sharon went through was not in my ballpark of what I was expecting to see and hear at OnSite. Also not in my ballpark was me being so active in someone else’s healing. Sometimes I think we gloss over the power we have in other people’s stories and the power others can have in ours. And sometimes it’s from someone we least expect.

  Remember how I told my daughter Seanna how I was going to summer camp for adults? I didn’t know it at the time I said it, but it was true in more ways than one. For instance, we had a camp cook (chef). We had our camp counselors (therapists). We even had a sort of camp dad. When we showed up, Bill was quick to point out that once the staff went home for the night, there was a staff that would still be there for us at night. Maybe if we needed a hug or had a scary dream, I suppose? I thought this was a little funny. I’m a forty-year-old man. I think I’ll be okay. Our night staff was a man named Dex. Dex was the guy who took our phones on that first evening we were there, so I was already not fond of him. All I knew was that he was the guy who knew where Instagram was, and he wouldn’t let me go there. Dex was also in charge of the evening activities. One night was movie night. One night was game night. See, it is like camp for adults!

  Game night. We were playing Balderdash. If you’ve never played, this is a game where a word is read that nobody knows the definition for. Everyone writes down a made-up definition with the goal of convincing everyone that your definition is the real definition. Someone then reads everyone’s fake definitions along with the real definition mixed into the bunch. Everyone then votes on which definition they think is the real definition, and if more people vote for your fake definition than the real definition, you win that round!

  I loved this game. I always had. It wasn’t until I was three rounds in and destroying everyone in the game that something inside of me triggered. It hit me from the back without me even expecting it. I lost my breath and immediately got up and walked away.

  “Carlos? You okay?” someone asked as I was almost running away. I didn’t reply. I just knew that I needed to stop playing that game. It had for some reason turned from being a fun game into a game highlighting one of my biggest childhood wounds. It was a game in which the biggest liar was the biggest winner. And it sucked the breath right out of me.

  I was sobbing on a stump next to the horse fence behind my cabin for several minutes when I heard footsteps. I tried to pull it together. I’m an ugly crier.

  “Carlos? You okay, buddy? It’s Dex.”

  The man who took my phone from me.

  “Yeah. I’m fine. I just got overwhelmed for some reason. Just needed a break,” I replied.

  “You know there is never just ‘some reason.’ Wanna talk about it?” Dex replied.

  The last thing I wanted to do was therapy on game night. Especially therapy from a guy who’s not a therapist. Dex was just the night-watch guy. I’m sure his job was simply to make sure that none of us snuck away in the middle of the night to smoke or something.

  “I’m okay, man. Thanks for checking in,” I answered.

  Dex began to walk away.

  The truth? I was farther from okay than I had been the entire three days I’d been at OnSite. A board game suddenly triggered something inside of me that I didn’t like. The truth was that I was good at Balderdash because I am a good liar. The truth was that I did need to talk to Dex at that moment.

  “Dex! Can you come here, man? I’m actually not okay.” I yelled out. But he was too far away to hear me now. I was gonna have to get off my butt and walk to Dex. That may seem like nothing, like the easy thing to do. But if you have ever been only a few feet from help and not felt the strength to go get it, you understand. Sometimes when help was staring you in the face, and you rejected it, you have to get up and go get it. And so I did.

  Dex didn’t bat an eyelash when I asked to talk. And honestly, there was something about him not being a therapist that made it a little easier.

  I went all in. Telling him about how that stupid little game triggered something inside of me. Telling him all about being a kid and lying about accepting Jesus. Telling him about how I can’t seem to get over the fact that I feel like a freaking fraud at this thing called life. Telling him how I seem to always rub crap on my blessings. We went from zero to hero in a hurry. Poor guy.

  “It’s not just you,” he said. And then he sat still just staring at me. As if those four words were supposed to fix me. “Look around. Do you see what’s going on here? All of th
em. All of your new friends feel like frauds too. And you know the good news? None of you are. None of us are. We all know right from wrong. And we all feel like we choose wrong more than we choose right. But just because you are good at Balderdash, Carlos, doesn’t make you a fraud.” I was stunned. It wasn’t the most enlightening conversation I have had in my life. It wasn’t laced with tweetable quotes. But it was true. And for some reason, when I looked around at everyone gathered around the tables with board games on them, I suddenly saw it. I saw humanity for what it is. A bunch of imperfect people trying their best to live a good life and make good decisions. And it gave me breath. As it should you.

  Sometimes, on some issues, we operate in grey areas, but the majority of us have no trouble discerning the difference between right and wrong. There is something deep inside a human being that allows us to differentiate good and bad. We intrinsically know because we all have the fabric of the King of Kings woven inside of us. God Himself created each and every one of us, and I believe that is why, even when we don’t know Jesus, we are able to make those judgments.

  So why is it that we cannot freaking stop doing bad? Why is it that yesterday, when driving past that homeless man, I knew in my heart I should have talked to him, but I didn’t? Why is it that when my wife drove up with a minivan filled with groceries that needed to be carried in, I sat on my phone watching a show, hoping she would bring them up all alone and not bother me for help? (Obviously, that didn’t go down as I was hoping.)

  The struggle is real.

  But the struggle isn’t always massive. Wanting to watch another episode of Stranger Things on my iPhone instead of helping Heather with the groceries isn’t a massive moral failure, but it is a selfish choice.

  Paul talks about this struggle in Romans 7:15–17 (CSB):

  For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate. Now if I do what I do not want to do, I agree with the law that it is good. So now I am no longer the one doing it, but it is sin living in me.

  That is a lot of dos and don’ts and want to dos but can’ts. It’s almost too much. At first glance, it would seem as though Paul is telling us—in the most eloquent way possible—we are screwed. The Carlos translation reads this way:

  I’m so confused. Why in the world can’t I do what I know is right, and why am I always doing what is wrong? Relax. It’s not you. It’s sin. But does that mean I can just chalk this up to, “Oh, well, I guess I’m just gonna sin forever”? I want to do good. I feel that deep inside. But lookie there. I just chose bad again. Ugh! I know God is inside of me, but I also know that sin is inside of me. And so continues the freaking battle.

  I know. Somebody please nominate me for Bible translator of the year.

  But you get it. It’s a battle. It is not going to end. If we can come to the understanding and acceptance that it is not going to end, then we are close to the answer to this battle inside of our hearts. And the answer lies in the next chapter of Romans (8:1–2, 11 CSB):

  Therefore, no condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus, because the Spirit’s law of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. . . . And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through His Spirit who lives in you.

  Thank you, Jesus. And my translation: Gaze at God. Glance at life. That’s it. We are all going to have this battle raging inside of our hearts. We are all going to have to face this battle between flesh and spirit on a daily basis. But instead of staring straight into the face of flesh, look up. Stare up. Gaze up. When you do that, “He who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through His Spirit who lives in you.”

  Let’s simplify this even more.

  During my convo with Dex, he asked me a simple question.

  “Can you tell me a time this past week when you made the right decision? When you made the choice of light over darkness?”

  The first thing that came to mind was supersilly.

  “I was gonna order a burrito at Chipotle but ordered a salad instead?” It felt dumb coming out of my mouth, but I said it anyways.

  “Perfect!” Dex responded. “Now another!”

  “I chose to get up at 5:30 a.m. to work out instead of sleeping in. I wanted to do that every morning. I only pulled it off one morning.”

  “We aren’t talking about every morning. We are talking about that one morning,” Dex continued.

  “I did the dishes after everyone had gone to bed even though it’s the kids’ chore. I know Heather likes to wake up to a clean kitchen.”

  “I responded back to an email I had been avoiding like the plague. I took Pope out at midnight when I knew he needed to go to the bathroom instead of just ignoring him and sleeping. I took my oldest daughter, Sohaila, to Waffle House on a date and left my phone at home. I got the oil changed in the Jeep and saved us a few bucks with a coupon I searched for online. I didn’t respond to a very attractive, probably fake Twitter profile when they complimented my Bible knowledge. I called my dad on the way home from a meeting when I didn’t really want to talk. I only had one beer at the dinner party last Wednesday instead of having four.” And I kept going. I probably talked for five straight minutes. What started as a chore suddenly turned into a waterfall of goodness from the life of Carlos. My life had suddenly become inspirational. And in a matter of minutes, I began to see myself as a good guy who occasionally made wrong choices instead of a bad guy who occasionally made good choices. Dex had flipped my script. Dex, this night shift Resident Assistant, the guy who had my phone and my internet; that guy. He made me realize that just like Paul said in the Romans verse a few pages back . . . “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through His Spirit who lives in you.”

  That is the good stuff! We may feel like there ain’t a thing we can do right. But just think about it for a second. Start naming the goodness inside of you. It’s there, and there is way more of it than you could ever imagine. You just have to start saying it out loud. Slowly begin to replace that lie and watch breath enter your lungs like it hasn’t in a long time. A few minutes later, I found myself back at the Balderdash table crushing my opponents without an ounce of regret.

  What Secrets Are You Keeping?

  Let’s start replacing some of the overwhelming lies in your life. The lie that I was a fraud and only capable of doing good every once in a while was more massive than I could even imagine. But that’s just it. It’s a lie. And all it took was some quick contemplation.

  •Look back at the last week. What are the good things that you pulled off? When did light win for you over darkness?

  •Think of at least three people in your life whom you love and care for. What are some ways in which you have been light to them over the years?

  •Pay attention in the next few weeks. Notice times when you may overreact to a situation or become more emotional than the situation warrants. Here is where you ask Jesus, What is this? Why am I reacting this way? Stay with me, Jesus. Show me why.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE LABYRINTH

  Our smartphones can get in the way of living life. When we handed our devices over to Dex on that first evening, I imagined that it was more about being fully present than anything else. And yes, this was one of the desired outcomes of not having a phone in my pocket. I was fully there. I was not focused on the outside world. That made sense. But there was an outcome of being phoneless that I was not prepared for: the absolutely mind-blowing decibel level in which silence existed. The silence was so loud. We had no television. We had no laptops. We had no smartphones. We had no newspapers. We had no idea what was going on outside of Camp OnSite. It was exactly why I had so many come to Jesus moments at camp when I was a kid in the ’80s. There were no distractions. I’m romanticizing our pre
-smartphone days just a little bit, but you don’t have to have a PhD in sociology to understand that something has happened to our attention spans. Something has happened to our ability to process, well, anything.

  I noticed right away that the silence at OnSite was helping untangle things in my brain. It was loosening knots and tangles in my soul. Things were becoming clearer a lot faster than they normally do. It was taking me less time to process some new truths than it ever would have back home. Makes sense. Untangling makes sense. But you know what didn’t make sense at the time? Silence was also doing some major tangling. As much as the silence was helping me with the knots in my heart that I had been attempting to untangle for years, it was creating new knots. Knots inside my heart that I wasn’t really ready for. It was taking some truths that I never doubted and making me doubt just a little. Truths that I always believed. This happens to us in life. Not normally at the pace it did in my little Narnia of therapy that OnSite was, but it happens.

  For those of you who had an incredibly Steven Spielberg-ET-esque childhood, you know what I’m talking about—the childhood straight out of all the feel-good ’80s blockbusters where parents love each other and you could ride your bike as far as the sidewalk traveled. All of your friends let you borrow their Transformers or Cabbage Patch Dolls whenever your heart desired. It was Heaven. It was life. It was true. Life was good, and then you grew up. When that happened, for some reason, what was true about life as a child was no longer true. Your marriage may be falling apart. Your healthy body may be failing you. Your kids may be making choices that contradict the values you raised them to have.

  So you ask: Was the truth of your childhood and the life you knew not true? Or is it just not true anymore?