Crawl Spaces
This article was first printed in the New Man eMagazine on April 21, 2009, found at www.newmanmag.com.
As a long-standing member of the Macho-Male Club for Men, I am not one to comment on basic, primal, blood-curdling fear which will turn your hair white and cause you to cry like a little girl (and by “cry like a little girl”, I mean no disrespect to little girls). While I may not be one to comment on my fears or even acknowledge them in public, for putting words to these trivial emotions is a way of breathing life into them and may cause membership in the Macho-Male Club of Men to be revoked, the inner phobias still exist.
As a former contractor, I have a fairly good understanding for the concepts of home improvement. I know a well-built crawl space under a house has a vapor barrier, ventilation, and plenty of maneuvering room under the floor framing. These crawl spaces are easy to access.
While I can recognize a well-built crawl space, I remember a time when I encountered the exact opposite and descended into the very bowels of terror. The opening to this poorly designed, sinister, and carnivorous crawl space was narrow and the height was less than my shoulder width, which turns rolling over into a contortionist’s trick. There was no ventilation or vapor barrier, and when combined with the close proximity to Lake Erie, we have a perfect environment for an entire kingdom of… dare I even write the word: spiders.
While Arachnophobia is not a problem for me, tight places make me extremely uncomfortable… extremely uncomfortable, especially with the thought of an entire house hovering perilously overhead. As I struggled to turn over in the mud, stretching my arms and wiggling (and when I say wiggling, I mean wiggling in a pure manly wiggle) my shoulders past the floor framing, I wedged myself into a position where I got stuck. Did I mention tight places make me extremely uncomfortable? Did I mention I know how to cry like a little girl?
I could stop the onset of panic if I could keep my mind focused. Instead of thinking about being wedged in a crawl space and living the end of my days half buried in mud, I tried to focus on whatever was around me. Ah… the lovely spiders. I could calm myself if the eight-legged, blood sucking creatures were enough to distract me from my exceptional phobia with tight places.
My imagination kicked in and I focused on my distraction. I realized these spiders were fighting one another, not me. I saw several engaged in tentacle-to-tentacle combat with cheering spectators. Some were jousting on centipede back. An entire battalion came into view wearing full armor and tiny little arachnid helmets. They marched by with a salute and were gone without a skirmish.
When I turned my attention to the smaller groups, I reached over with my free hand to flick a couple of larger spiders picking on a smaller one: it just did not seem fair. I know that made me the larger bully, yet it did very little since the smaller one impaled itself on a nail, effectively committing pesticide (or is that arachnicide?).
I admit my imagination is a bit weird, but my panic attack was diverted and I was able to unwedge myself and continue working under the house. Distractions or mind tricks are common for those of us with quirky little fears, whether we admit them or not. Yet my small diversion reminds me of what Jesus was telling us in Matthew 7:3-5.
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
As my imagination saw the hordes of spiders bickering and fighting in the open air of the crawl space, how close did I come to revealing what happens in our own lives? We distract ourselves with the problems of others so we do not have to focus on our problems, which sometimes may very well be crushing the life out of us. We are so stuck or wedged into our way of life, we become resistant to change. We want to focus on others instead of dealing with what the Lord is working in our lives.
Have you been there? Have you been in that crawl space of your faith wondering if the Lord will ever allow you to get out of the cramped quarters and move on? We ask this question while looking at the conflict around us, whether it may be spiders or others.
So, how do we take the plank out of our own eye? Let me encourage you to take your eyes off the conflict and instead look to Jesus in the midst of your struggle.
When we set our eyes on Him, we embrace Hebrews 12:2-4, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”
Whether we acknowledge our fears or not, our phobias still exist and we end up dealing with them eventually. Whether we acknowledge our sin our not, our struggles with sin still exist and we end up dealing with them eventually.
Often, when we recognize a specific sin in the life of a close friend, we are recognizing the very sin we are blinded to in our own life. When we set our eyes on Christ, He provides a path of revelation and healing, becoming a source of strength we need to overcome the tight spot we put ourselves in.
Sometimes we end up in the crawl space of our faith because that’s the only way He can get us on our knees. If you find yourself there, let me encourage you to pray and fix your eyes on Jesus.
Are you tough enough to crawl out from under a house of sin?
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Glenn Sasscer
www.glennsasscer.com
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