We don’t do well when we leave the environment of the Spirit and attempt to live as believers in a world of compromise. That journey will put our spiritual lives in a place of jeopardy.

A few days ago, after several days of steady rain, worms began to crawl out of the soil and onto our city streets. I did a little research to answer the “why” of that unusual situation. 

Worms breathe through their skin. Normally, the soil is a mixture of oxygen and water, but when continuous rains happen, the soil becomes saturated, and the worms begin to drown because they breathe through their skin. To survive this event, they crawl to the surface to seek remedy, sometimes onto hard surfaces, like a hard asphalt street. When the worms climb out of their natural element they get confused about where their burrows are and end up in what looks like a mass suicide mission.

Whenever a follower of Jesus ventures into a place informed by natural wisdom, they become like a worm on a street. They can crawl for a bit, but in the end, their faith perishes in that exposure.

Zephaniah wrote of a time when Israel went up on their roofs where they would “bow down to the sun, moon, and stars.” That idolatry led them to a very dark place where “They claim to follow the Lord, but then they worship Molech, too” (Zephaniah 1:5). Molech is the god that required people to worship him by tossing their babies into the fires of sacrifice.

Like the example of the worms, we can become confused in our exposure to the world and our alliance with the spirit of the age. What seems like an innocent exposure is a death sentence of our faith. 

From time to time, the Lord will have us examine our lives and make sure our faith remains simple and intact and focused solely on the Lord. No matter how much water the world infuses our lives with, and when it feels like we are drowning in doubt and fear, the Lord will miraculously make a way for us to remain safely embedded in His life.

As the rains of spiritual insanity saturate our lives, the Lord will keep us safe in His presence where we will not have to venture to the surface of the surrounding insanity and be consumed in its error. Knowing where we belong will keep our faith alive as the rains of confusion draw people out into a place of spiritual death.