Egypt’s Locust Invasion & Your Next Meal

The locust invasion in Egypt can’t help but remind us of the biblical plagues on that land. The boils, frogs, hail, and darkness of biblical days were natural and supernatural methods God used to get the attention of Pharaoh. They also get our attention.

(Photo used by permission of GNU Free Documentation License, via Wikimedia Commons)

The flying critters in Egypt today do more than bring to mind a Bible story. They point to the provision of God upon our lives.

Watch this video of a recent locust invasion in Africa.

Locust Invasion—Then and Now

More years of biblical history occurred in Egypt than in any other nation outside of the land of Israel. When the Lord wanted to get Pharaoh’s attention, God sent a locust invasion to devastate the land. But that was but one of the plagues. The sole source of Egypt’s strength flowed 4,000 miles long—the longest river in the world.

• The Nile represented the lifeblood of Egypt. Without its vital supply, Egypt would have been a mere desert in North Africa.
• The river flooded its banks annually, providing the land a rich silt perfectly suited for farming.
• Because the flood occurred the same time each year, the Nile determined Egypt’s calendar. The Egyptians deified the great river as a god.
• Therefore, when God turned the Nile to blood in the first plague of the Exodus, He not only wounded the heart of Egyptian sustenance but also struck the Egyptian gods by revealing them as powerless.

Whether God used locusts, the Nile, or other plagues, they all served the same purpose.

(Photo: by Charlesjsharp. Own work. CC-BY-SA-3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Over and over in Exodus, God provided both disaster and deliverance to communicate that He, and no other, is the Lord ( Exodus 6:7-8; 7:5,17; 10:2; 14:4,18; 16:12).

What We Can Learn from a Locust Invasion and a Bloody River

If you think about it, the world offers numerous distractions from the true source of our sustenance.

• We turn on the faucet and water comes out. Where is God in that?
• We work hard and paychecks come. That’s me, not God, right?
• We travel short distances to supermarkets filled with aisles of food. That’s modern progress, right?

No, not right.

God never intended the consistent means of our provision to replace our dependence on Him. (Tweet that.)

From the reliability of the seasons, to the food always ready at the market, to the automatic deposits that appear in our accounts, all we have flows from God’s gracious hand (see Nehemiah 2:18; 6:16; James 1:17). And He can remove it in a moment to remind us it is so. A simple locust invasion can remind us of that basic principle.

Tell me what you think: What other means of provision ironically distract us from the God who provides? To leave a comment, just click here.