God of the Roach

I am heading out for the retreat.

I wanted to post something before I left, but at this very moment I am still not quite sure what I will post about.

How about this...

For the past month or so, over the course of my day, I will think this phrase: "I am God of the roach."  That is God speaking, not me. 

I didn't know why the Lord keeps saying this phrase to me, but what I had originally gathered was that he was telling  me that he is not just God of the glorious or the pleasant or the desirable, but he is also God of the small, the pesky and the seemingly unnecessary. 

The first time the Lord spoke this phrase in my mind, I was driving with my children and I was taking in the beautiful evening. The colors of the sky, the rays streaming from the sunset, and the calm evening were captivating me. In that beauty, he spoke the phrase.

I am God of the roach.

At that moment, I redirected my thoughts from the beauty and began to think of those nasty insects. Cockroaches are pests. They are of no advantage and from the research I have done they appear on most all continents. They are most always considered pests.

But since the Lord continued to speak this to me, I researched further.

I have also learned that researchers have found a balance of cooperation and competition that exist with roaches. What I am saying is that when they placed cockroaches in multiple groups, the groups all joined together, forming one group.

Also, cockroaches run from light and desire dark places. Researchers believe that only two pieces of information are used when roaches make a decision: how

 dark it is and how many of their friends are there. 

So, in all of my silly research of cockroaches, I have concluded that roaches represent sin. This goes against my initial thinking that they may be a picture of small and unwanted issues. I believe this represents larger issues, consistent, addictive sin. 

People mirror roaches more than I had previously thought. When in sin, we flee from light. We run from those who are living in freedom, we avoid any person, place or thing that represents holiness and we desire to stay in darkness. In our disobedience, we look for friends; anyone who will approve of how we are living, anyone that will join us in our darkness. We, like roaches, have two factors in our mind when dealing with sin; how dark is it and how many of our friends are there. Those living in blatant disobedience work to stay there and over time their eyes become so accustomed to living in darkness that any ounce of light makes them turn their head and hide their eyes to protect them from light.

For the person living in sin, remaining in the dark, looking for anyone who will accept the choices you are making, He is God of the roach. I believe that my God wants to remind us that, in this dark world, full of sin and people who claim to know the truth but deny any form of Godliness, he is still the Lord. He is still the Alpha and the Omega. He alone is righteous and pure.  

In our roach-like behavior and our roach-like lifestyles, he still trumps. Ashamedly I have seen someone so entangled in sin that I don't ever consider that person coming to know the Lord. I feel they are too far gone. But he is God of the roach. He is still Lord of the one person or persons in your life that you have lost hope in. For you, have hope, take heart, and keep praying. He can restore and change. In Bible study on Tuesday, we read Saul's conversion to Paul. If Paul, who persecuted Christians, can be saved and dramatically changed, so can the roach you know.

When things seem downcast for you and when evil seems to prevail, remember he is God of the roach. He hasn't lost control. This world has not run ahead of the Lord, he is worthy of our honor.

He is God of the roach.

I am not completely sure why this odd phrase keeps going through my mind, but I know the Lord will show me in time.