empty locust shells....

I now know they are called cicadas but as a kid we referred to them as locusts. They would emerge from their subterranean caverns and deafen the landscape with their screeching. The little brown carcases were abundant on trees and porch posts. I remember that we (as children) were somewhat timid about those threatening "bugs" firmly attached to the big hickory in the back yard. They looked so real. They had legs, bodies, heads...all of the tell-tell form of a vicious creepy-crawly. We would eventually learn that the "locusts" were long gone and had merely left behind their shell. The shell was just a empty form and the life that it once contained had moved on.


I find that, in Christianity, it is possible to remain drawn to "empty locust shells". We tend to gravitate to practices that once held life but now remain only a testament to where God once was. Recently, while contemplating the content of a meeting that I might facilitate, I found that each visit of the various potential approaches would bring a sick "dread". To be frank, there was no desire to move forward with the meeting. That absence of desire began to really trouble me. Had God "benched" me because of all of my past failures? Had I "benched" myself out of laziness, burn out, or simple disinterest? Crying out to God day and night seemed to bring me no closer to the answer. Then, when I least expected it, the answer came. One evening, laying quietly, I began to contemplate my relationship with God. I know He speaks to me.....He has ever since I was a child. I know He has always sought me out and drawn me to Himself in spite of my failings. Those two unmistakable realities are strong foundations for confidence. He began to assure me the We were OK! As I lay there I began to see the image of a "locust shell".He was showing me that the particular situation that was causing me such distress was just a "locust shell". He began to show me that He was going to protect me from Locust Shells. Jesus once warned that a time was coming when men would "hold to a form (locust shell) of Godliness but deny the power there of". My personal journey, it seems, will continue to be away from form. I must discover where Life is and follow.

mickey