We've Gone Batty

                I hate to say it. It’s almost embarrassing, but we’ve gone batty. The truth is, it happened years ago, but it’s only been lately confirmed.

                Perhaps I should have been more honest with myself that summer when I looked up at the fading evening sky and saw a couple of jaggedly flying creatures silhouetted against the remains of the day. As they vectored over the backyard, I wondered: Where do those bats live? Outside, I reasoned optimistically. They couldn’t live at our house.

                My denial continued. When I heard scritching around the shutters and a curious fluttering against the window screen late at night, I dismissed it as nothing more sinister than birds roosting on top of the window frame. And after all, the sounds stopped when the weather got cold. So maybe whatever it was went somewhere else.  Always, always, though, there was the small voice that said: “I hope so” to all my explanations.

                Last month there were no more excuses, denials, or I-hope-so’s. Scritching, scratching, small creature shriekings—enough to arrest anyone’s attention—brought my rationalizations to a screeching halt. Whatever it was loudly proclaimed: “We aren’t birds.”

                That’s when we called in the pros, and we learned some interesting things.

                Bats are protected not only by the roof over their heads but by law. Instead of being exterminated, they must be excluded from where they are living. Once they’ve enjoyed the shelter of human dwellings and are then excluded, bats won’t find a new home in the wild. They will find another human abode. I thought the bats we may be harboring left in the winter, but that’s not likely. Rather they hunker down and stay warm (or cool in the summer) by adjusting the depth to which they descend into insulation. (Sinister, if you ask me.)

                When the pro finished his explanation and drove off in the pouring rain, unable to help us that day because of the deluge, I couldn’t help but think that those scritching squatters were just like sin.

                How easy it is to have those bat-like sins in our lives. We may see a hint of them here and there. How often do we excuse them? “It’s no big deal,” we may say. How about: “It’s not as bad as what other people do?” Maybe we just get lazy and pursue activities that don’t have much Kingdom value. Bats!

                There are times when I just coast along for a while because I think I deserve a break. I’m tired. “Do I have to stay alert in my spiritual life?” Bats!

                And as time passes those brazen, sinister bat-sins burrow down deeper and get used to squatting in our lives, and we excuse and overlook them because they have become our new status quo. Bats!

                Exclusions take time. First the bat hideaway is sealed up, except the place where the bats come and go. Then that entrance/exit is fixed so that the bats can get out and not get back in.

                Just like being aware of squatter bats or killing them doesn’t really solve the problem, being aware of the sin in our lives and trying to eradicate it doesn’t work that well either. Spiritual exclusion is more successful, I’m learning, when I seal up my life by saturating myself in the Word and in the presence of Jesus. But I have found that the change of focus is what is changing me. And as the focus changes, the bat-sins are increasingly excluded from my life.

                Our bat exclusion is still in the planning stages with the pros. You may see another blog on this adventure. Meanwhile, bat-sins exclusion is going on daily.

                How’s your exclusion going on? Share a line or two, I’d love to hear from you.