Am I a Grasshopper?

As a child, I well remember playing in our yard and occasionally seeing a grasshopper. These rather small, defenseless creatures are truly at the mercy of the feet walking around them.

Sometimes children can be heartless and, just “out of fun,” step on the grasshopper to squish it. Grasshoppers are also easy prey for some birds that hop up and consume them in an effortless gulp.

Believe it or not, grasshoppers can teach us an extremely valuable life-lesson.

In the Old Testament the 12 Hebrew spies were secretly sent into the Promised Land to evaluate if the land would be easy to conquer. After scouting out the land, 10 of the 12 spies returned home with a negative report, while only 2 believed that God could give victory.

The 10 faithless spies saw themselves as mere grasshoppers in the sight of the land’s giant inhabitants. They said, “We were in our own sight as grasshoppers, so we were in their sight” (Numbers 13:33).

How they viewed themselves is how they thought others viewed them.

God, however, takes a different viewpoint. In his majesty, He declares, “It is He that sits upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers” (Isaiah 40:22).

In our own finite strength, it’s easy to for us to think of ourselves as grasshoppers about to perish in life’s challenges. But when we view our situation from God’s perspective, our challenges are as grasshoppers to be easily conquered through God‘s strength.