Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Year(s) (01/20/11)
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TITLE: From Despair To Hope | Previous Challenge Entry
By Carol Penhorwood
01/26/11 -
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A devastation beyond imagining. A disaster of such proportions that it not only caused economic ruin but threatened the Israelites' livelihood...a locust plague.
These locusts, described as short horned grasshoppers, breed rapidly under suitable conditions becoming gregarious and migratory. They may be carried hundreds of miles by winds, rapidly stripping fields and damaging crops. Flying at night with the wind, locusts may cover 300 miles. (The largest swarm covered 400 square miles comprising 40 billion insects.)
Their flight obscures the sun and casts a thick shadow on the earth. “It seems indeed as if a great aerial mountain, many miles in breadth were advancing with a slow, unresting progress.”
Locusts eat the equivalent of their own weight. A very small part of an average swarm ( or about one tonne of locusts) eats the same amount of food in one day as about 10 elephants or 25 camels or 2500 people. It is said that the Desert Locust has the potential to damage the livelihood of a tenth of the world's population. Certainly a disaster of major proportions!
We also face disastrous years that bring us to our knees. They come in many forms, perhaps in the death of a loved one, catastrophic illness, or the result of sin in our lives. Whatever our particular circumstances, God is not taken unawares. He knows our years, for He goes behind and before. And He has promised never to leave us or forsake us. But disasters often bring us back to an awareness of God as never before. They make us aware of our need for Him. God always manages, in His way, to bring good out of the bad.
And I believe God still often uses national disasters as a call to return to Him as He did in the days of Joel who writes in chapter 2, verses 12-14:
God in His mercy takes pity on us and graciously calls us back to His loving arms. We have His promise:
You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God and there is none else.”
(Joel 2:25, 27 English Standard Version)
Father in heaven, I pray that it does not take a disaster in our lives to bring us back to You. As individuals, and as a nation, may we recognize our need for You and return to the comfort and guidance of Your loving arms.
Joel 2:32 (English Standard Version)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locust
http://www.fao.org/ag/locusts/en/info/info/faq/
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