If you placed a video camera in the living room of my house—and just to be clear, that’s NEVER going to happen—you might observe me or my husband suddenly flailing our arms, slapping ourselves, or leaping from our recliners and violently clapping our hands together.
You might think we were having some kind of Pentecostal fit, but you’d be wrong. You’d actually be witnessing one battle in our ongoing war with one of the plagues upon our planet: gnats. And I’m not exaggerating about that plague thing. Gnats actually were one of the plagues God inflicted upon the land of Egypt when Pharaoh refused to set the Hebrew people free.
If I had been Pharaoh, God would not have had to go beyond the gnat phase of His plague plan. No need to progress to flies, boils, locusts and the rest. He would’ve had me at gnats.
I’m not sure who’s responsible for the occasional seasonal gnat plagues around these parts, but if you’re the one with the Pharaoh-like hard heart, I have just one word for you: REPENT. I hate bugs that get all up in my hair and chomp on me like I’m a cob of sweet corn, but gnats and their awful coastal cousins, no-see-ums, are among the most irritating. When they have the audacity to sneak inside my house, my kingdom, I declare war.
During one recent gnat invasion, I fought back with an arsenal of small electric gnat-zapping devices strategically placed in electrical outlets around our house. I had high hopes for these but alas, they have been a disappointment. Joe and I find ourselves once again resorting to hand-to-hand combat, frantically swatting at our nemeses whenever and wherever we find them in our house.
Like British leader Winston Churchill said during the darkest days of World War II, “We shall fight them in the bathroom. We shall fight them in the kitchen. We shall fight.
Okay, so maybe Churchill didn’t use those exact words, but close enough. You get my point.
Our worst gnat invasion occurred when I brought a hibiscus plant inside for the winter. Little did I know that plant was a veritable Trojan horse upon which a thousand little gnat-demons were riding. The Great Gnat War that ensued was indeed one for the history books.
In an attempt to milk some redemptive purpose from the situation, I jotted down a few notes about the deeper lessons to be learned from it, focusing upon this question: What other “plagues” sneak into our lives hidden in relatively innocuous things?
For example, when sharing a burden or prayer request with a friend turns into gossip; when a reasonable desire for material possessions escalates into hoarding or greed; when a longing for love devolves into sexual sin that wreaks all manner of physical, emotional and spiritual havoc; when a yearning for connection and affirmation leads to an unhealthy obsession with social media; or when a desire for fun or escape entraps us in the web of addiction.
Satan has a million diabolical ways to lure us into death traps through activities and attitudes that on the surface may seem pretty harmless. To avoid those traps, we must remember that the devil’s goal is always to “kill, steal and destroy” us (John 10:10), and to take to heart the admonition to pay attention and be mindful of the devil’s schemes (Ephesians 6:11 and 2 Cor. 2:10-11).
In other words, don’t bring that plant in your house until you’ve made sure there aren’t any gnats riding in with it.
“Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.” – Ephesians 6:11