When in Seminary, I bought a house. Anita and I loved this little brick house in an historic neighborhood. There were mansions near us, but ours was a humble little 1300 sq ft fixerupper. We pulled up the carpets and found beautiful honey hardwood floors underneath. Our first night in the place we fell into bed exhausted and about 2 AM we woke up to a train barrelling through our bedroom. Not really, but somehow we had not realized that the train tracks were just a block away. Strangely, we never noticed it any night after that…slept right through. We repainted the house inside and out, buffed the hardwoods, reworked a bath and a bedroom. While we were living there the pipes ruptured under the house, but through God’s amazing provision we were able to get them repaired. We had done some cosmetic work on the house and still found time for seminary classes. God provided two part-time jobs for me and one full-time for Anita. I was also interning at a church close by. We were enjoying our little house and a new puppy that Anita found on a street corner. We had an adequate back yard for the dog to live in. She shared the porch with the washer and dryer we had plumbed in. What we didn’t know was that the giant rats from the railroad yard could eat through a plastic dog food bin we stored on the back porch and they wanted to live close to the food supply. So, right in the middle of exams, we were awakened to loud noises in the attic. Then while studying late into the night you could hear these large rats having a frat party just above the pull-down staircase in our bedroom. The next day, between exams and final papers and work and a church event I found some glue traps and stuck them up there. I was confident that these would do the trick, the rats thought otherwise. Apparently, after the party commenced that next night, one reveler got stuck on the trap and began to run around the attic while still attached to the glue. I arrived up the rickety stairs to find a trap covered in fur, but no rat. Apparently he had partied his fur coat right off and was running around naked. Too tired to search for said naked rat, I closed up the attic and fell asleep. The next day, I took exams, studied and found some more glue traps. I nailed these to the attic floor. Sure enough the party was on again. And sure enough I heard that terrible stuck to the trap noise again. This time I ascended the stairs with the only weapon in the house - a golf club. Fortunately the rat was stuck well enough this time that he was not getting away and I didn’t have to use the club. As it turns out “he” was a “she” who had deposited her little ones in the attic too. Unfortunately they all had to be dispatched to the “rat hereafter” shortly thereafter.
The apostle Paul, worried about the early church, reminded them that they were not like those who partied all night, but they belonged to The Light. He says: “You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.” (1 Thessalonians 5:5-8 NIV-GK) When we belong to Jesus we no longer act like varmints, but we begin to act like Jesus.
Hang in there people. God is glad to be with us. I’m praying for us all.
