Everywhere I Go: Learning to See JesusSample

THE THREAD THAT HOLDS US A Danish philosopher tells the story of a spider that dropped a single strand down from the top rafter of an old barn and began to weave his web. Days, weeks, months went by, and the web grew. It regularly provided the spider food as flies, mosquitoes and other small insects were caught in its elaborate maze. The spider built his web larger and larger until it was the envy of all the other barn spiders. One day, as this productive spider was traveling across his beautifully woven web, he noticed a single strand going up into the darkness of the rafters. I wonder why this is here, he thought. It doesn't serve to catch me any dinner. And with that, the spider climbed as high as he could and severed the single strand that was his sustenance. When he did, the entire web slowly began to tumble to the floor of the barn, taking the spider down with it. The apostle Paul wrote that Jesus Christ is before all things - and that in Him all things hold together. He was present at creation. He is the head of the church. He is the first born from the dead, and it is in Him that all the fulness of God dwells. When we try to sever our lives from the sustaining thread of Christ, everything falls apart. Every man or woman who has clipped the strand that unites us with God and sought to find meaning and satisfaction and sense in life has been disappointed. There is simply no coherence in a life lived out on our own terms with no reference to the divine.