“The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in king’s palaces.”
(Proverbs 30:28)
Did you guess we were going to learn something about spiders today? Maybe spiders are not your favorite creatures, even in the great outdoors. Or maybe you don’t mind them as long as they stay outdoors! But our verse reminds us that spiders can even be found in king’s palaces, so we shouldn’t be surprised when we find them in our homes. Did you know that a spider is not a bug or an insect? No, it is a kind of animal called an arachnid. It is in the same class of animals as scorpions and ticks. Insects have three body parts and six legs. But spiders have 2 body parts -- the abdomen and the thorax -- and eight legs. There are more than 30,000 different species, or kinds, of spiders.
Not all of these spiders spin webs, but most kinds of spiders do spend much of their time spinning webs. They use these webs to trap insects for food. Spiders have special silk-spinning glands, called spinnerets, at the tip of their abdomens. They use these spinnerets to spin their webs. The threads are called “silk”. The threads of the web are sticky, and that is how insects get caught in them. So if the threads are sticky, why doesn’t the spider get caught in its own web? Spiders have a special oil on their bodies that keeps them from sticking to their webs.
Every species of spider spins a special style of web, and they build their webs perfectly on the first try. They don’t make mistakes and have to start over. Some webs, in bright sunlight, look like flowers to insects that are looking for nectar. They fly right into the web thinking they will find nectar. Instead, they will be a meal for the spider!
Next time you see a spider web, think about the great God who created the spider and planned for it to spin a special style of web. The web is God’s way of helping the spider to find food. What an amazing God we have, Who designed such unusual creatures and even planned how they would find food. When we think about God’s care for these small creatures, we can’t help but think about how much He loves and cares for us!
* Thank God for His love and care for you. Thank Him for how He provides your needs. Praise Him for His great power in creating all things. *
Hope you have enjoyed this little devotional concerning another of God's "little things". There are two more to go!
It is true that the only spider I have ever loved was Charlotte. They make me feel kind of ick. Took a class of students to visit a beekeeper one year and his barn was loaded with spiders. He explained that they kept the mosquitoes and black flies down and that made them worth keeping.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you -- I detest spiders. A few times every summer we find one of those big wood spiders in the house. Creepy. And there were a few times this past winter when I went to pick up a piece of firewood in the cellar and there was one of those on the end of it. Needless to say, I became very cautious when picking up firewood to add to the furnace.
ReplyDeleteThe really annoying spiders are the ones that make these wooly webs everywhere in the house. Those spiders look like miniature daddy-long-legs and they can make those webs so quickly.
Your beekeeper friend was right, I know. But (other than Charlotte) I just can't make myself like them!