THUMP THUMP DRAG AND GRASSHOPPERS!
MERRY MONDAY Parris Bailey
-“And they told him, and said, We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it. Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there. And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it. But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we. The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. 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.” Num. 13:27
Talk about how some people exaggerate! Giants and Grasshoppers and getting eaten alive! Some of my growing up years was spent in Slidell right outside of New Orleans. At that time our subdivision was the last place before the woods began. On hot summer nights we would go to “Brown-switch” road where we would turn off the car lights and tell ghost stories and scare ourselves silly. One of the infamous stories was called “THUMP THUMP DRAG”. I will spare you the details, needless to say 40 years later I can still retell it. How about the old wives tales about not crossing your eyes “cause they would get stuck”, waiting hours after you ate before you could swim “cause of cramps”, or going water skiing fearing “falling into a nest of water moccasins”. And why would anyone swallow Vicks vapor rub when it says quite clearly not to? After Hurricane Katrina hit we thought the dirt was poisoned, the mosquitoes would kill us, and alligator’s were eating people! Note, nothing is ever said from the other spies about spiritual fruit, or joy, hope and peace. Are any of us disposed to leave the country of the wilderness to possess a better country? Or will we listen to the million voices?
“Science and business and the cares of life absorb many and bewilder them. Immersed in the work of their world, men are apt to forget that deeper droughts of life may be drunk than what they obtain in the laboratories and the counting houses. The spies were to climb the hills which commanded a view of the promised land. And there are heights which must be scaled if we are to have previsions of the heavenly life. We have to climb quite above the earthly and temporal, above economics and scientific theories. Where the way of faith rises, where the love of men becomes perfect in the love of God, not in theory but in the practical endeavor of earnest life, there we ascend, we advance.
We shall see the coming kingdom of God only if we are heartily with God in the ardor of the redeemed soul, if we follow in the footsteps of Christ to the summit of sacrifice.” Expositor’s Bible