Very early one morning, before the sun had risen, a spider set to work building a web.  The spot he chose for his home was on the front side of the rear-view mirror of a shiny, freshly-washed car.

Before he was even done with his web, a man came, got in the car, and drove it into the road.  As the car gained speed, a wind came over the top of the mirror and beat upon the spider and his web.  As the wind came faster and faster, the spider clung desperately to a single strand of web that was anchored at either end.  The 70-mile-per-hour wind caused the strand to flex horribly.  All the spider could do was to hang on, pray, and hope for the wild ride to soon end.

But the ride didn’t end.  For mile after mile the spider hung on.  His web was ruined.  Everything he’d worked for was gone.  An hour passed.  To the spider, whose life span is short in comparison to other beings, the adverse conditions, the most horrible affliction he’d ever suffered, seemed to last a lifetime.

Ten minutes into the second hour, the worst happened.  The spider’s web snapped, and he was suddenly airborne in the hurricane-force wind.  Over and over he tumbled until the wind gradually abated, allowing his strand of web to gently settle into a green tree.

The spider looked around.  It was cool among the branches of the tree.  There was no glare from the mirror.  Insects buzzed back and forth in abundance.  He was in a spider’s paradise.  He quickly set about building a large, pleasingly symmetrical web, and was soon the best-fed and happiest spider the world had yet seen.

 

Application:

 

Afflictions are tailored

to land one in his individual promised land

if he’ll just exercise faith and hold on.