My grandparents live on a dairy farm in Kentucky. Across their front porch my grandmother has hung a several hummingbird feeders. On any given summer day you can sit on the porch and watch hummingbirds zip back and forth between the feeders. Sometimes they fly so low you wonder if they’re going to play darts with the side of your head. It’s quite entertaining, and relaxing, to sit back and enjoy God’s world at work.

Once my grandparents were enjoying this sight when something caught their eye. Just below the awning was a big male hummingbird with bright green feathers and a beautiful red chest. Unlike the rest of the birds, he was simply hovering in one place apart from the feeder. Looking closer they discovered that he was caught in a spider’s web. What’s more, the tiny spider had already wrapped new web around his leg and was starting on his wings. Pappaw, who at the time was roughly 6’3” and 250 lbs., quickly got up, and with his enormous farmer’s hands released the hummingbird from his imminent death.

I can imagine that hummingbird looking at the spider and her web and thinking, “This is so small compared to me. Surely I’m stronger than this!” Yet it wasn’t until he was caught in the web that he realized his own weakness against something that was much stronger than him.

Like the hummingbird, we often look at certain sins and say, “This is so small. Surely I’ve got the strength to just try this one time then walk away.” Or, “Yeah, I do this sometimes, but I can quit doing it whenever I want to.” What we don’t realize is that even the smallest sin (which we lessen by calling them “minor vices”) are so much stronger than us. Even if we do nothing more than dabble in them initially, there’s a real chance we will find ourselves one day so tangled up that we can’t move. Solomon wrote in Proverbs 5:22, “The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.” Unfortunately, we often don’t learn this lesson until the spider has us wrapped up. If we find ourselves in this state, what can we do to fix it?

Truth be told, we can do nothing, because our own power is not enough. What we need is a “6’3” 250 lb. Pappaw with enormous farmer’s hands. In other words, we need someone who is bigger than both us and the sin. The hummingbird’s salvation came only because the enormous hands of my Pappaw wrapped around him and pulled him out of the web. In the same way, we can only rely on the enormous hands of our God to pull us out of death. David realized this concept well in the Psalms.

“Let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry! For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol. I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am a man who has no strength, like one set loose among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand…O LORD, you have brought up my soul from Sheol; you restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit.” (Psalm 88:2-5; 30:3)

Only God has the power to give us a new lease on life. Are you caught in the web of sin, waiting on that spider to finish spinning her death grip around you or can you proclaim like David, “He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.”  (Psalm 40:2)

Cory Waddell