Worm Saver!

 At least one of my three daughters is a worm saver. She takes after her dad! She probably learned the weird practice from me! What is a worm saver?

You know the smell, and you have seen the catastrophe after a hard rain. You leave your house and smell worms! As you cross the pavement, you see them sprawled all over the place. Wet worms. Why are they there? How on earth, pun intended, did they get in the middle of the KMart parking lot?? 

The reasons don't matter to me. The fact that they are there is cause for concern. Don't tell anyone, but what I do next might turn your stomach. I reach down, gently pick them up, and remove them to the nearest dirt, garden, or grass patch. WHY? I'm a worm saver. So is my daughter. 

In Romans 12:8d, Paul says, "he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness." He is listing some of the spiritual gifts. I am not sure how cheerful I am as I practice my good Samaritan act on the Lumbricina. But it is a merciful act to none but the one I save. Weird.

I wonder what Isaac Watt was thinking when he wrote the now-famous line in "At The Cross" which reads, "Would he devote that sacred head For such a worm as I?" C.S. Lewis put the "worm mentality" like this, "Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good-above all, that we are better than someone else-I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil. The real test of being in the presence of God is that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object" (Mere Christianity 1952, P.124).

Paul had moments earlier, written these worm-like words in 7:24 "Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?" "Calvin saw humankind as being unable to do anything for ourselves to free us from the stranglehold of sin...(IBID).

God is a worm saver! He demonstrated his mercy when he picked me from the sin-goo in which I found myself entangled. I wasn't struggling because I was already dead in "my trespasses and sins." The smell of death was in the air. There was no hope. Until the worm saver picked me up and set me in the heavenly!* 

THAT is MERCY! That is another one of my gifts! Not because I save worms or bugs and not because I save people! But because of God's mercy in my life. Are you a worm saver? Are you merciful? Be cheerful in so doing. You'll help more than worms!

* See Paul's note in Colossians 3:1-17 for more good instruction on being merciful.