Rainbow Grasshopper (Dactylotum bicolor) ~ Extravagant Surprises


i am no stranger to the mountains.  When i am back at my home base in Colorado i try to hike in the Rockies once per week.  Even though i have been in this region on and off since the age of 6, i am constantly amazed at how many new plants and animals i encounter on my explorations.  One day I was hiking with my dear friend Bekah.  i lost her along the trail and turned back to see where she’d gone.  There she was, crouched down by the grass, taking a picture of something.  I approached slowly, trying to not scare away whatever she'd found.  Here is what we saw:


A Rainbow Grasshopper!  Those extravagant colors were a secret gem in a world of brown and green.  It looked as if a miniaturist had painted it.  i had no idea such a beautiful grasshopper existed, let alone lived in Colorado.  We both crouched in the grass, watching it, in stunned silence.  I was reminded that day of how much God can surprise us with His beauty, even if it’s a place we’ve been a million times.  

 When i was leaving Oxford to move back to America, my mentor gave me 4 words of advice that changed my life forever: "Read your Bible everyday".  i had heard this before, but had found it distasteful in the past.  Who actually reads their Bible EVERY day?  How can you read the same book over and over again?  i can't even read some of my favorite novels more than once because i know what's going to happen.  But when those words came from a man i so deeply respected, someone at whose feet i had studied Scripture for a year, i knew they must be true.

 Some of my Atheist friends can’t believe i read my bible every day… and ENJOY it!  But I do, immensely.  Just because those pages are worn, just because I’ve read those verses time and time again, doesn’t mean that God can’t surprise me with some new and beautiful revelation.  Jeremiah 33v3 says, “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.”  There are so many hidden gems in the word of God, and something new leaps off the page every time i open my Bible.  i invite you to join me in reading this incredible collection of words every day, and to savor our Lord's extravagant surprises!

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