Stop Feeding the Locusts

You have seen them. Flitting from one tree to the next, one plant to the next. They flit around making all kinds of racket and eating the leaves off trees and plants occasionally causing the plants to die. Locusts.

pic ©123rf.com, text ©shelleywilburn.org

John the Baptist ate locusts and honey. Some people today eat them covered in chocolate and call it a “delicacy.” Kind of gross if you ask me, but hey whatever floats your boat! God used them to plague Egypt when Pharaoh wouldn’t let the Hebrew children out of slavery. You have heard them in the trees, in the yard, at home, in the church…

Dictionary.com defines the locust as; “Any of several grasshoppers of the family Acrididae, having short antennae and commonly migrating in swarms that strip the vegetation from large areas“ (emphasis added).

I think I know those people. While the insect locusts swarm and strip the vegetation from large areas, the human locust can accomplish the same thing. If we listen to those annoying, swarming, noisy people who swarm together in various areas, and allow them to, they will inevitably intimidate and manipulate every person who allows them one foothold into their lives. I know. I’ve been there. And like the Hebrew children, I lived in the slavery of that intimidation for more than forty years. 

But God doesn’t want us to live like that. This is why Jesus came, to set the captives free! To set me free. To set you free. There is more than one kind of slavery. Not only physical, but mental, emotional, psychological, and more. And once you are free, you need to stay that way and stop feeding the locusts of your life.

So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free. ~John 8:36, NLT

There are people who will not like your new, free state. They will come in and try to manipulate you into doing and saying thing their way, “like we’ve always done it.” That is not what God’s Word says. We are supposed to be playing by God’s rules, not man’s rules.

I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten… ~Joel 2:25, NIV

We can’t go back in time and reclaim those moments that the locusts stole from us. Sometimes it is difficult to get past those times when others held us down in intimidation. But we can move forward into the grace and forgiveness that God has laid out for us in Jesus. And once we step into His healing grace, He promises us that he will give us back double portion for our troubles.

Come back to the place of safety, all you prisoners who still have hope! I promise this very day that I will repay two blessings for each of your troubles. ~Zechariah 9:12, NLT (emphasis added)

Allow yourself today to be captured by the hope Jesus gives us. Think hope. Talk hope. When you face a situation that seems hopeless, remember that in God, you are a prisoner of hope. Don’t let the noisy, swarm of locusts around you drown out the still small voice of hope that is in you. Listen to the sound of freedom and stop feeding the locusts.