Westerners are wealthy. Look around, and what do you see? Well-maintained roads, grocery carts overflowing with food, college degrees, a full coffee shop on every corner. Even the poorer among us are, compared with much of the world, rich beyond measure. This is a straightforward fact. We don’t need to apologize for what has been given. But we do need to keep our eyes wide open to the reality of our abundance — otherwise, our Lord may send a locust plague.
No, that is not a non sequitur.
What do you think when you hear the word locust? For many who have grown up in the West, the only association may be to the eighth plague (Exodus 10:1–20). But I grew up in West Africa — and I remember the day the locusts came. They didn’t come all at once. At first, we noticed just a few of the big, yellow, ugly creatures. They stuck out because we didn’t typically see locusts like these, and certainly not en masse. The swarm didn’t quite reach biblical proportions, covering the land so thick that it was darkened (Exodus 10:15). But they did form an army, invading our city for a few short days.
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