Possums Attack

Last week I came home from the gym to the most disturbing sight!!! A POSSUM!!!!! In my opinion these creatures are the most vile and detestable animals in all of creation. I am not sure what happened to me as a child but I am sure there is a repressed memory of a traumatic event involving a possum. They are like huge rats except worse because they play dead and their tails are a mile long (and naked -YUCK)! Anyway this beast was in the back yard with the dogs and when I first saw it I thought my brave and fierce pets had ended its rampage of darkness but boy was I wrong, that little possum was playing possum!!! As soon as the dogs walked away it got up and tried to creep off!!! Well needless to say I freaked out!! I was screaming at my dogs to eat it or dig a hole and bury it or throw it into the neighbors yard. My dogs however thought it was just a toy to play with and they did not heed my frantic requests!

During this time on a normal day I get my coffee and my Bible and spend some Jesus time on the back porch, but this day I was a teense distracted!! I didn't read one verse and I didn't pray about anything except asking God to strike that disgusting monster with lightening!! I wasted a whole hour staring at something I hate because I didn't know where it was going or what it was doing and I sure didn't want it sneaking up behind me.

Then it occurred to me, this possum was just a baby (not at all cute or cuddly though) and what do babies have? Thats right Mamas and Dads and maybe even a whole slew of siblings. And what's worse is they could all be hanging over my head at this very moment. They could have lived in my tree as long as I have lived in this house. But I never worried about them before, I knew they could be anywhere, I mean this IS East Texas. So why was I wasting my precious Jesus time focused on this one little guy that was unlucky enough to show himself in broad daylight? But that is how we are isn't it? We hyper focus on the little things that seem out of control and neglect the things we can control like how we use our time and words. There is constantly a great number of possible "possums" hanging over our heads, anything could spin out of control at any moment, but honestly there is nothing we can do about all that. All we can do is do the best we can with what we have and trust God to take care of all the possibilities. We only have so much time allotted to us to spend as Jesus time, or to do anything for that matter, and I don't wanna waste any more time staring at a disgusting distraction when I could be sipping coffee and hearing from my Father! "Finally brother and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy- think about such things." Phillipians 4:8. Try to take your eyes off all the possible dangers and distractions in your life and focus on any little good thing you can find and see if your whole outlook doesn't change!
Oh and just for the record- the possum "disappeared" with the help of a friend and I have yet to see any of his family hanging around, though without a doubt they are lurking somewhere! But I have resisted the urge to thoroughly search the treetops and instead actually spend my Jesus time with Jesus.