The Day God Used a Spider

I was on my way to church. Already a win. Already obedient. Already feeling pretty good about myself. Worship playlist on. Coffee in hand. Highway speed—about 65 miles per hour. Life felt holy-adjacent.

And then…I saw it.

A brown recluse spider appeared inside my car. Not outside. Not on the windshield where Jesus and aerodynamics could handle it. Inside. The. Car. If you’re from Oklahoma, you know this isn’t just “a spider.” This is a medically significant, flesh-eating, life-altering, Google-image-inducing spider. This is the kind of spider that makes you rethink your entire theology in under three seconds.

That spider wasn’t just creepy—it was dangerous. My brain immediately went into survival mode.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but I discovered in that moment that I am apparently an octopus ninja. I had limbs doing things limbs were never meant to do. One hand on the wheel, one hand swatting, one imaginary hand praying, another hand trying to roll down a window, all while my feet were doing something between braking, accelerating, and levitating.

At 65 miles per hour.

I was dodging. Swerving (safely-ish). Yelling things I will not repeat. All dignity left the vehicle.

Why? Because I knew what that spider could do if it bit me.

I didn’t say, “Oh, it’s probably fine.”

I didn’t say, “Let’s see where this goes.”

I didn’t say, “I’ll deal with it later.”

No.

I went into full emergency response mode.

And right there, on the highway, on my way to church, God started preaching to me. Because isn’t it interesting how quickly we respond to physical danger…but how slowly we respond to spiritual danger?

That brown recluse was small, but the damage it could cause was massive. And that’s exactly how sin works.

Sin rarely shows up announcing itself. It crawls in quietly. It looks manageable at first. It stays just out of your direct line of sight. But if it’s left alone—if it bites—it can do serious damage.

In Celebrate Recovery, we talk about hurts, habits, and hang-ups. We talk about sin patterns, coping mechanisms, resentment, pride, control, addiction, fear. And a lot of the time, those things don’t look that scary when they first appear.

We think:

“It’s small.”

“I’ve handled worse.”

“It’s not hurting anyone.”

“I’ll deal with it later.”

But later is where the damage happens.

Here’s the part that really got me: Trying to deal with that spider while driving was chaos. I was still moving fast. Still in control. Still trying to manage the situation myself.

And that’s exactly what I do with sin.

I try to swat it away while keeping my speed. I try to manage it without stopping. I try to handle it without surrendering control. But wisdom would’ve been pulling over. And spiritually? Wisdom looks like stopping long enough to let God deal with what I can’t.

Recovery has taught me this: Ignoring the spider doesn’t make it harmless. Overreacting without surrender doesn’t bring peace either. What brings peace is acknowledging the danger and inviting God into it.

Sin isn’t just “bad behavior.” It’s anything that separates us from God, steals our peace, and slowly poisons our lives. And just like that brown recluse, it doesn’t have to be loud to be lethal.

The moment I truly started healing—really healing—was when I stopped pretending I could handle everything at highway speed.

When I started pulling over. When I started confessing. When I started asking for help. When I stopped acting like seeing the problem meant I had to fix it alone.

God doesn’t ask us to be octopus ninjas in our own strength. He asks us to seek Him. To surrender. To trust His care and control. When I seek God like that—When I turn immediately instead of spiraling—When I invite Him into the driver’s seat instead of trying to karate-chop my way through life—Peace returns.

So now I think about that spider a lot. Not because I want to. But because it reminds me how clearly I understand urgency when my safety is threatened.

What if I treated sin with that same seriousness?

What if I responded faster instead of minimizing?

What if I stopped sooner instead of swerving longer?

Maybe recovery—real recovery—looks like this: Notice it. Name it. Stop pretending. Pull over. Invite God in. Let Him handle the spider.

And sometimes, the thing that turns you into an octopus ninja on the highway is the very thing God uses to show you where surrender actually begins.