Fearing people is a dangerous trap, but trusting the LORD means safety. Prov. 29:25 (NLT)
We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like grasshoppers. Num. 13:33 (NLT)
God sits above the circle of the earth. The people below seem like grasshoppers to him! He spreads out the heavens like a curtain and makes his tent from them. Isa. 40:22 (NLT)
Dear heavenly Father, there are days, even long seasons, when people gain more power over our hearts than they deserve, or even want. We can feel like grasshoppers in the presence of giants—even when some of those people may be half our height! When this happens, any of a number of broken relational styles results. Thank you that there’s grace for every season of life and every expression of “the fear of man”. Grant us freedom, that we might love well, Father, grant us relational freedom.
Through the power of the gospel, help us take back the power we’ve given some people to shame us and manipulate us—to make us feel like vulnerable grasshoppers. No one deserves that much power over our hearts. The truth is if we’re going to feel “grasshopper-sized” anywhere in life, it should only be before you. For you are God and people are not. The good new is, in Christ, we are your “beloved grasshoppers”—safe, not threatened; cared for, not used; cherished, not shamed.
As well Father, help us take back the power we’ve given some people to “fill us up” and make us. Whether it’s our spouse or children, friends or strangers, people we work for or people who work for us, those we envy or those we lust after—we can turn anybody into a idol, a substitute god, or a false savior. Father, there is Jesus-shaped void you have placed in our hearts, that only Jesus can fill. Keep us restless until we rest in him… or rest in him again. So very Amen we pray, in his glorious and grace-full name.
