The Grasshopper Story.

There have been a few points in my life where I have known, with all of my being  that God is not only real... but I am with him.
Not so much that he is with me, that where ever I set foot he follows me, but that I'm in a place where he is.

I'm going to tell a story and it is probably going to sound stupid, I know. Yet still...

When i was younger in the faith, only walking for a year or two, I was at the pool one night in our complex. I usually went at night because it wasn't packed full of kids or families... and I was pretty introverted at the time.  Sometimes I would just sit there in the pool and talk with God about things on my mind, school, church, girls, coming up with rent or whatever.  One particular night I noticed under water in the current was a dead grasshopper. I kept my eyes on it because I'm not particularly fond of bugs, dead or alive, and I continued talking to God about all kinds of whatever. 

As the hour grew later, my heart started feeling bad for this poor dead drown bug that had been floating in the pool water for a long time.  I started imaging it just living, and doing what all grasshoppers do... leap like freaks any which direction not caring about what going on in the grand scheme of things... and then suddenly it falls... and there is nothing that can help.
He caught in the undertow and suffocating. I think about how this is us with sin, and how God saves us. Before I know it, I'm pulling this dead bug out of the water with my pruned fingers and putting him up on the deck of the pool.

I started praying for this bug to be alive.  I know we have a lot of bugs in the world, and I know there wasn't anything special about this one in particular... but my heart was broken for this little creature. I kept praying that God give the bug life. My prayers weren't because I wanted to see a miracle. It wasn't to prove the existence of God. It was because I didn't want it to be dead, so I gave it to my father in heaven and asked that it not be dead.  The grasshopper laid there on the deck in the night, as I prayed for it for a half an hour.  I don't know why I'm embarrassed to say this, because it sounds ridiculous... 
But there was a scripture that came to my mind as I was praying for life to be restored to this insect. It was Mark 16:15 that says ^" And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation"  Here I was trying to take that to heart. After about an hour, the bug started twitching... and I was taking the all creation part seriously. It seems really ridiculous on the surface. Yet, when that grasshopper sprung away, and I knew that he was dead when I pulled him out of that water, I knew that he was dead floating in that water... 
I know that "he" ( not sure on bug gender) was dead. 


I think that God brought the creature back to life for a few reason.  The first, was to show me who HE is. God is the God of life. He does what is good in his sight. Second, was that when you ask for things with the right heart, for the right reason, and it is something that reflects His character... God will show up. He will take care of his kids. He takes care of his creatures. 

The next thing that impressed on me is that grasshopper is us, it is us drowning in our sins. When we drown in our sins, nothing aside from God can save us. Sin is deep. The edge will creep up on you when you are leaping around like a freak and not paying attention. 


It was funny, that this story eventually lead me to a passage about God's comfort. 


^" Do you not know?    Have you not heard?  Has it not been told you from the beginning?
   Have you not understood since the earth was founded?  He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,    and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,  and spreads them out like a tent to live in." -Isaiah 40:21-22


 So where ever you are, be it drowning in a pool and destruction encroaches, or having your heart rendered for some seemingly insignificant significance... Know that nothing is impossible for God. Nothing is beyond his restoration. Nothing.