Grasshoppers, huh?

As I wrote my post last night, it struck me that 8 of the 10 spies that Moses sent out, truly thought that they looked like grasshoppers in those other people’s sight!!!  They really believed this!!!




To be truthful, here in Texas, the word, “grasshopper,” is pretty much a dirty word.  I rarely meet a person that likes grasshoppers and usually, the folks that I find talking about them are talking about killing them!!!   




However, I must admit that my dogs love to eat them!!!  And around here, that’s about all that they are good for!!!  DOG FOOD!!!




So, when I think about grasshoppers, I think about a horrible pest that shows up here in Texas in hoards and eats everything in site!!! 




Because I wanted to understand why these 8 men thought about themselves as grasshoppers, I decided to find out more about grasshoppers.  I thought that maybe in all the info, I would find something that would explain the difference in how we (those 8 men and I) think about grasshoppers.




And again, I came to the conclusion, that IT REALLY IS ALL IN YOUR PERCEPTION OF YOURSELF!!!  You know, it is all about how you see yourself!!!
 

What I found is that most people think of grasshoppers in the same way that I do - as PESTS.   




The 2 following paragraphs were taken from an article that I found on Rodale’s Organic Life.  I’ve included a link to their site.  http://www.rodalesorganiclife.com/garden/how-prevent-plague-grasshoppers




Grasshoppers made it onto the top-10 list of biblical plagues for good reason. During serious outbreaks, says entomologist Whitney Cranshaw, author of Garden Insects of North America, "they'll eat anything. Beans. Roses. Berries. Anything."

I also found some interesting information in the following article.  Please understand that I have ONLY posted small parts of this very long article.     




Grasshoppers in the Field and Garden
by Barb Ogg, Ph.D., and Don Janssen, Extension Educators
http://lancaster.unl.edu/enviro/pest/factsheets/268-95.htm


Grasshoppers can be serious pests of field and garden crops. Biblical accounts of swarming "locusts" described the natural devastation that grasshoppers can inflict on human civilizations.


In North America, there are several grasshopper species that defoliate field crops and garden produce as well as trees and shrubs. Grasshopper injury to plants consists primarily of leaf feeding; however, grasshoppers also feed on stems, blossoms, ripening seeds and fruits...


…Grasses are thought to be the normal food of grasshoppers; still, migrating grasshoppers feed on nearly any kind of vegetation and may destroy every green plant in their path. 


The female grasshopper lays from 8-25 egg pods, each containing 20-100 eggs. These egg pods are laid in the soil…




I hope you have found this information interesting.  I know that you may already know a lot of this information.  But did you know how many eggs the female grasshopper lay during her life??? 




To me that information by itself is just horrifying!!!  Just thinking about plagues of grasshoppers hatching out and attacking my garden and eating up all of my plants just horrifies me. 




And so when I think about grasshoppers, I think about hoards of pests attacking my land-my garden, my flowerbeds, and my dad’s crops!!! 




So, now you can understand why I don’t think of grasshoppers in the same way that these men thought of them.




If we look at the following scriptures, we find that when the writer speaks of grasshoppers, it is in comparison to multitudes of people. As grasshoppers come in great number, so did these people!!! 



Judges 7:12 And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the east lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude; and their camels were without number, as the sand by the sea side for multitude.

Jeremiah 46:23 They shall cut down her forest, saith the Lord, though it cannot be searched; because they are more than the grasshoppers, and are innumerable.

ONLY in one verse, does the writer compare the devastation of an army of men to the devastation of the grasshopper.  




Judges 6:5 For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude; for both they and their camels were without number: and they entered into the land to destroy it.

And finally, in the last verse, we find that GOD is sitting high and looking low. We find that the people of the world look tiny like grasshoppers covering the earth from where GOD is sitting. 

 

Isaiah 40:22 (AMP)

It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; [It is He] who stretches out the heavens like a veil And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.




Let’s be real!!!  If you sat on the top of the world, and looked down on the earth, what would men look like from way up there??? 




Specks of dust?  Ants?  Maybe bugs or grasshoppers?????




Aha!!!  So, GOD is NOT saying that we look like grasshoppers, but that from the top of the world, we look really small.   




I think that this verse sheds light on how those men (those 8 spies) were thinking!!!






Instead of seeing themselves as a great hoard of people coming in to take the land, these 8 men saw themselves (and the rest of the children of Israel) as very small and very insignificant!!! 




I believe that the Spirit of FEAR had attacked them so viciously, and had scared them so badly, that they truly thought that they could NOT win any battle that they would fight against these great men!!! 




And because they thought this, they decided that the people of the land also thought of them in this same way!!!


Numbers 13:33 (KJV) And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.




We know that these men thought of themselves as so small and insignificant that they could easily be squashed under the feet of the giants of the land!!!

So, I ask you today, what do you think of yourself?




Do you believe that you can take the land that GOD has given you (whatever GOD has promised you)? 




Or are you going to let the enemy whisper in your ear and tell you that you are nothing?