Cicadas

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In my part of the world, the Cicadas are present.  It's as if the trees themselves are talking to one another, the cicadas have made their home high in the leaves, and are all moving their wings in such a way that leaves you feeling as if some foreign language is crying out upon you.  If you were to walk outside you would be bombarded with noise.  The noise itself is a bit irritating.  Their left-behind shells leave you with an eery feeling and perhaps an insight into what it must have felt like for the Israelites during the plagues that reigned down upon them.

As I've been thinking about how loud and irritating these cicadas are, and amid the noise I've been reminded of the breathtaking ways that God forms and shapes my own life.  99% of their lives are spent underground as immature insects, anywhere from 13 to 17 years, let that sink in for a moment.  Thirteen to seventeen years to not yet fully formed to growing into who they were destined to be. 

God has created these creatures with purpose and thoughtfulness and then spends time creating, molding, forming, and growing them for up to 17 years.   God does not leave them, walk away from them, forget about them, or wonder why they created this creature with such distinctive features. God stays with them, breathes life into them, and sees through maturity.  A maturity that comes in a form that doesn't make sense to us but is nonetheless stunning.

If God spends time forming, creating, and molding a small creature for 17 years, how much longer do you think that God of all creation will mold us into their own likeness?  How much longer do you think that the everlasting God is going to stay with us, never shaming or harming us as we mature into who God has formed us to be?  How much longer do you think that the God of all Gods will nurture us, watch over us, and tend to us as we live this life of finding our voice, and seek to hear the voices of others?

God is a God of creative beauty.  

The loud, annoying cicadas are a gentle reminder we are maturing in our faith/our system of belief.  We are not fully formed, we are still a work in progress and God is still tending to us.  Let the noise of the cicadas create a hope that God has not forgotten about you, that you are still a work in progress in the loud obnoxious world that we live in.  





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