CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?

“Who do you think will get hit by the most?”
“Aaack! I got the first one.”
“Ugh, that one hit me twice. Does it count as two?”
“No, but if there’s a tie, it will be the tie breaker.”

My husband, daughter, and I were not playing some sort of sport. We were out for a run and dodging the cicadas. Y’all cicadas are a thing!

The cicadas on a patch of sidewalk near my house. No one piled them here. This is just how many of them there are! Ew!

For those of you who don’t live in the parts of the fifteen states that got inundated by Brood X, every seventeen years these insects come up from underground en masse, to the tune of billions, possibly trillions of these big, ugly bugs. They are harmless, but extremely loud (it sounds like a loud generator or an airplane landing in our neighborhood most afternoons) and so very gross. These guys are e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e! In your eyes, and hair, underfoot, splattered all over your windshield. They cover sidewalks and tree trunks and randomly hit you while you’re running.

It’s a crazy phenomenon that lasts a couple of weeks and feels like it’s out of some bizarre movie. But believe it or not, the cicadas are real. They’re here, there, and everywhere. And then, almost overnight...they’re gone. I have friends who know I’m a bit of a Bible nerd and ask me things like, “How can you believe everything in the Bible? Isn’t some of it a bit far-fetched?” Ummm, you mean like a plague of large, winged, singing insects? Seems pretty probable to me.

So Moses stretched out his staff over Egypt, and the Lord made an east wind blow across the land all that day and all that night. By morning the wind had brought the locusts; they invaded all Egypt and settled down in every area of the country in great numbers. Never before had there been such a plague of locusts, nor will there ever be again. They covered all the ground until it was black. --Exodus 10:13-15

The appearance of the cicadas actually cements my faith. God can make swarms of insects. Not usually as a punishment as He did to the Egyptians, but He is certainly capable of creating countless critters out of nowhere. I’ve seen it with my very own eyes.  Therefore, it’s easy for me to buy into all the other plagues listed in Exodus, as well.

“Okay,” my friends might say, “I’ll give you the plagues, but how about Jonah and the whale? Getting swallowed by a giant fish and being spit out sounds more like the fairy tale Pinocchio than something that could really happen.”

A whale of a tale. Pinocchio? A lobster fisherman? Jonah?

Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights...And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.--Jonah 1:17, Jonah 2:10

Tell that to lobster diver, Michael Packard, who just last week got completely swallowed by a humpback whale, was inside the whale’s mouth for 30-40 seconds, and then the whale spit him out.

My point? The Bible is the Living Word of God! Yes, some of it sounds crazy. But so does the actual news, documented by scientists, photographers, and eye-witnesses. If we can acknowledge that there can be plagues of insects and that a man can be swallowed by a whale and spit back out, we can look at some of the other amazing things in the Bible and contemplate their truth. As the Apostle Paul tells his friend Timothy, All Scripture is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16). So do you believe these promises?

2 Timothy 3:16

• Jesus gives us inexplicable peace (John 16:33).” 
  
• God doesn’t want to judge us, but to save us (John 3:17). 
  
• Everything is possible for one who believes (Mark 9:23). 
  
• God has plans to prosper you (Jeremiah 29:11).
  
• Jesus promises to be with you always. No matter what (Matthew 28:20).  
  
• Jesus invites you into a full, abundant life (John 10:10).
  

Bugs and whales are interesting, but these promises? These are ones I desperately want to be true. I crave peace. I’m sick of being judged and would love to be saved from all the comparisons in this world. I want all the beautiful dreams of my heart to be possible. I long to prosper. To have Jesus with me, always, to have Him never leave me--sigh, what a relief! And a full, abundant life? Yes, please! 

The Good News? All of it is true! The bugs and the fish and the promises of a loving God who created you and me and longs to spend time with us. He doesn’t force us into a relationship with Him, because what kind of a relationship would that be? But instead, He invites us into one. All we have to do? Believe.

“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” --John 3:16

For more inspiration find me on Facebook and Instagram