Crushin’ It!
in Thoughtful Thursdays on November 14, 2015
Yesterday I took Ethan to have his haircut. Through the course of the appointment, Susan began telling me about her latest adorable addition: Her new grandbaby. We began to reminisce about all of the years she has been cutting my hair and watching my children grow. However, she doesn’t often get to physically see my kiddos any more. My time at the salon is mine! But, Ethan needed an emergency appointment, and Susan was all to happy to squeeze him in. Throughout the appointment, I was reminded of a story she had shared with me years earlier, soon after her first grandbaby had arrived on the scene.
Susan and her bundle of joy had been on her back porch, enjoying some rare, pleasant East Texas weather, when a “visitor” flew in and landed right in front of them. It was a big, fat, crunchy…locust. Susan starts to scream the grandbaby starts to scream, and Susan looked right at me and said, “I don’t do crunchy bugs.” At that moment in time, that locust presented a real problem, a real threat to her well-being. I began to think on that for a minute…
The Israelites were faced with a similar problem and just as much of a real threat as they were poised to take possession of the Promised Land. Their issue? The Promised Land was already inhabited by other folks.
Big folks.
Giant folks.
So big, that when the spies who were sent into the land to scope it arrived back at camp…the report they gave was disturbing. Here’s the backstory: Moses sent twelve spies into Canaan. Ten came back and said this: “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height…we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them” Numbers 13:32-33 (emphasis added, ESV). Only two, of the twelve spies came back and said, “Hold up! We can totally take them! God is with us! And I am NO grasshopper!” (Of course, I just paraphrased!)
The point is, they were faced with something big, ugly and scary. God was more than slightly miffed at their lack of faith, thus costing them 40 years in the desert. Caleb, one of the two spies who spoke up and refused to be labeled as a “crunchy bug” was able to see and enter the Promised Land…very few others were given that privilege. Not even Moses was able to enter the Promised Land.
I am not a fan of bugs, crunchy or otherwise. In fact, the image on today’s post is that of a crushed gecko that was in the door of a house I need to enter this past week. I seriously jumped about five feet back upon seeing his mangled and squished little body. Perhaps I thought he would rise from the dead and taunt or tease me. Maybe I was concerned that a resurrected gecko would bite me and then infect me with demon gecko powers thus converting me to the dark and seedy underbelly of the gecko world. Who knows.
The point is, by this time, all of you know I have totally and completely irrational fears and phobias.
So, what are you looking at today? Is it is big, ugly and scary? Do you feel like a grasshopper? Or, do you feel like that squished gecko that has been hammered into the crevices of the door? Let me help you out. God is bigger than the boogie man, and He’s bigger than what’s facing you, too. You’re no grasshopper. Turn over whatever is BUGGING you to Him. Let Him handle it.
Here’s hoping you can totally CRUSH your day!
-Dallas
One thought on “Crushin’ It!”
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Lynn Doyer says:
This week I have been the grasshopper/Gecko. Shortly after reading this I started to read my devotions and the very first one from The Bible App verse of the day, Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you…. One of my favorite verses which sits by my kitchen sink. It’s a God-thing! How great is our God!