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| Stink Bugs are the latest army of Satan... |
In New Jersey, where this food-loving Christ-follower calls home, we are being over-run by stink bugs.
They are disgusting and clearly minions of satan sent on a mission to destroy mankind.
As I type this, one such dastardly evil-doer is eying me up from the window pane.
He's probably communicating with the prince of darkness right now about how he's going to dive-bomb me or squirt some of his gross stinky slime at me. That's their way. Knowing neither God nor mercy, these evil creatures seek to steal, kill, stink and destroy. And if they can't do that, they'll creep the poop out of you and make you and your house stink so badly that your friends will abandon you and your whole social standing will be reduced to nothing but a steaming pile of horse manure.
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| Mr. Peanut: evil incarnate |
Not since my childhood when I was scared out of my wits by the maniacal Mr. Peanut on the boardwalk have I encountered such pure unadulterated evil in one place.
That's right, I just said Mr. Peanut is evil. Why do you think so many kids today suffer from peanut allergies? He's a maniacal villain wearing a monocle, top hat and cane, but don't let that facade lull you into complacency. Peanuts are not supposed to walk around and talk to people. Make no mistake, he's evil run amok and his peanut allergy strategy is just the first stage in his plan for world domination.
Anyway, back to the evil stink bugs...
What was God thinking when he created these things?
"I know, I will create a gross thing that has an armor-like shell and swarms into unsuspecting people's houses. It will dive-bomb them and attack their faces when it is annoyed and it will squirt gross stinky slime that will not only stink up the area but call more of his friends to join him. That's a great idea."
In fact, so against this satan-led stink bug menace am I that I am prepared to amend the beloved church and Sunday School catch phrase of "God don't make no junk" (which already causes this English teacher to cringe at the grammar) to a more appropriate "God don't make no junk...except stink bugs."
As swarms of these forces of evil have descended upon our house this year, I am actually thinking about Egypt.
Remember Pharaoh and Moses? Moses was used by God to unleash all those nasty plagues and yet Pharaoh continued to have a "hard heart" and not let the Israelites go.
Wow. I don't think that it really dawned on me how hard the heart of Pharaoh must have been until I had to vacuum up or kill over 100 stink bugs per day that had invaded my kitchen and bedroom.
Take your pick: frogs, flies or locusts, they are all nasty. I could probably deal with frogs more because they are not so scary or gross. Annoying to have to step over in the morning and probably messy when you accidently do step on them, but I will give my man Pharaoh the benefit of the doubt and say that many people would have hung in there with the frog plague.
The flies and locusts not so much. Bugs are gross and nasty. They are so nasty, in fact, that they have even curbed my appetite. I mean I'm wasting away to nothing here because of stink bugs.
Wait, maybe that's not such a bad idea.
Anyway, after experiencing the joy of stink bugs, I'm kinda thinking that if I'm Pharaoh, about the first appearance of locusts and I'm saying "Moses, take your peeps and head on out. I'm done, yo."
That he could be overtaken by such nasty bug infestations and still oppose God gives me a new insight into what having a "hard heart" means.
And the sad thing is that there are a lot of folks out there in the world who also have the heart condition of Pharaoh.
Pharaoh said in Exodus 5:2, "Who is the LORD, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD and I will not let Israel go."
Pharaoh's heart was hardened because he didn't know the Lord. (Also because God said he would harden his heart!) His distance and indifference towards the one true God led him down the path towards heart-hardening. It's a well-worn and rather wide path that many in history have walked towards their own destruction.
His response when confronted with the power of God was to fight and rebel against it. As was the response in the Garden of Eden, in the days of the prophets, in Jesus' day, in the days of the apostles, and even today. We grown-up know-it-alls don't like to be told what to do and we certainly don't like relying on others. Perhaps that's why Jesus dug kids so much.
That's why many men in particular don't ask for directions. A problem that you would think would have been ended in the age of GPS, and yet, I find myself strangely drawn to going a different way than the GPS indicates because I am convinced it is wrong with all it's high-tech fancy pants satellites and such. I know where I'm going thank you!
It's also why so many fans of food like myself enjoy all-you-can-eat buffets. We don't have to rely on the waiter or waitress to bring our food, and we can take as much as we like. We don't like relying on skinny waiters or waitresses because they might not bring us enough and/or might judge us when we ask for 2nd dinner, and yet we fear the fat ones because we think they might be eating off our plates on the way out.
You have to be pretty dead-set against God, however, to put up with a plague of locusts and not freak out and give in.
If only we could use our rebellious energy in a better way, to rebel against evil in our world (as evidenced by the previously mentioned Mr. Peanut and Stink Bugs but also in the works of Satan and his other minions) instead of God.
A lot of us Christian folks are familiar with the verse that we should "be still and know that I am God" from Psalm 46:10. We like to quote it to others while not applying it to our lives. We like to cling to it only when we really have no other option but to sit still, having exhausted all of our own plans and courses of action.
Moses and the Israelites were commanded that as well. After leaving the Egypt, they were chased by Pharaoh's army. They began to lose heart. Moses commanded "Stand firm and you will see the deliverance that the Lord will bring you today," in Exodus 14:13. It's one of my favorite portions of scripture because I love Moses, and being a rather creative and dramatic chap, I can imagine in my mind what the scene must have looked like (usually while I eat a bowl of ice cream).
I see the Israelites cowering in fear, much like my family as the nasty stink bug army infiltrates our house. I see the menacing stink bugs, er, Egyptian army, racing toward them, and then I see Moses. He's all cool, calm and collected. This man just really never got rattled. Okay, maybe at the burning bush he was a nervous Nelly and he eventually hit that rock and was banned from the promised land, but dude put up with a lot from those Israelites. How many times did he save them from being wiped out by a disappointed God? He'd come back from a one-on-one session with God and they'd be dancing around a golden calf like idiots. Even his brother Aaron would just claim that he had no idea how it happened, that the people were mean and scary and that a cow just came out of the gold on it's own.
Me? I would have been so done with these folks long before the hitting of the rock. Not Moses. He started out as a chattering coward, but by Exodus 14, he was a man of confidence. Confidence not in himself, but in God.
I see the wind blowing his hair and him standing and shouting this exhortation to the folks as he reminds them that God will do the fighting for them.
So to me, this is one of those pivotal moments in mankind's history where God intervened directly in the affairs of men to show his power and his deliverance.
It's enough to melt a heart, even one hardened by years of opposition to God.
So, while I'm still standing and waiting to see the Lord deliver me from stink bugs, at least I can look at those nasty things and be reminded about how hard the hearts of some folks are and how powerful my God is.
I think if I can remember that, I might just be about my Father's business a little bit more killing the "stink bugs" of the enemy with the word of truth.
And, at the very least, now I have a good opening line for my arrival in heaven when I get to see God face to face: "Dude, what were you thinking when you created stink bugs?"
