We have been experiencing an outbreak of grasshoppers and crickets here in our area. They are everywhere!
I decided to look up their life span – it can range from a few weeks to a few months. Ridiculous.
I’d like to tell you about a “grasshopper” mentality that lasted about 40 years. I call it the grasshopper syndrome. Grasshopper Syndrome was first diagnosed in Numbers 13.
Moses had led the Israelites out of Egypt and God said He had given them the Promised Land. All they had to do was go in and possess it. Moses chose 12 men to spy out the land and bring back a report. Ten men came back with Grasshopper Syndrome and two men, Joshua and Caleb, came back “considering” only the good that God had revealed to them.
The ten men said this “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.” Numbers 13:33 The problem wasn’t the giants in the land, it’s that they were considering the giants and not God and saw themselves as grasshoppers.
We know from reading about Rahab in Jericho that the people’s hearts had been in fear from the moment they heard about the Red Sea parting that the Israelites would come and destroy them so really the ten men had nothing to fear except their own imaginations.
Now year’s later we find a second outbreak of Grasshopper Syndrome. It occurs in I Samuel 17. This is where we find the story of David and Goliath. The army of Israel had heard Goliath taunt them for forty days. “And the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together. 11When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed, and greatly afraid.” I Samuel 17:10-11
Goliath was the biggest man around at over nine feet tall and he came out twice a day mocking the armies of God. Grasshopper Syndrome had spread throughout the entire army and they were filled with fear.
Then David, a shepherd boy, shows up to bring gifts to his brothers and things change. He hears Goliath’s defiant cries, and asks but one question “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine?” To us today, that may seem like a silly question but it was David’s way of not considering Goliath’s size.
Since the days of Abraham, circumcision was a sign of God’s covenant with the nation of Israel. It meant that God had promised to be their God and always be with them.
Powerful, powerful covenant.
“David said to the Philistine, ‘You come to me using sword, spear, and javelin. But I come to you in the name of the LORD All-Powerful, the God of the armies of Israel. You have said bad things about him. 46 Today the LORD will let me defeat you.,,Then all the world will know there is a God in Israel. 47 All the people gathered here will know that the LORD doesn’t need swords or spears to save people. The battle belongs to the LORD, and he will help us defeat all of you.” I Samuel 17:45-47
With one shot from the sling, Goliath was dead. What kind of Goliath is standing in front of you today – unemployment, illness, personal relationships, financial hardship – whatever it is, do like David.
“Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.” I John 4:4
Take God’s word and destroy the giant, remove Grasshopper Syndrome from your thinking, let God’s word have final authority in your life.