Even Cricket Feces Stench

Few people have the marvelous privilege of dwelling so intimately with crickets as to be able to smell their fecal matter. I have been given that privilege through the honor of caring for leopard geckos.
Leopard geckos eat crickets. In order to make the eating of the crickets nutritionally profitable, you must keep the crickets and feed them for no shorter than 24-hours. During this time and as the time extends, some of the crickets die. This may occur because you yourself have squashed the cricket while moving the bag and/or cage; this death may occur because the poor cricket’s card was called, or this death may have taken place because the other crickets attacked and killed the cricket in order to eat it.
Lest you think otherwise, crickets’ captive lives are not pleasant. Body pieces fall off quite easily, they do like to eat one another, and they rarely chirp in my captivity.

But to the point of this blog post, their poop STINKS!

I would never have imagined this to be possible. Now that I have spent some time interacting with these creatures I have come to the conclusion that they are one of the vilest creatures I have ever kept near my being. (I do have experience in housing animals: mice, rats, hamsters, fish, goats, dogs, cats, and a horse, thus I have the authority to reach this conclusion.) None have ever been so gross!

In order to feed the crickets to your geckos you must remove the lid off the cricket cage and (somehow) remove the crickets from their cage and place them in the cage of the gecko. Disgusting! As you are doing this, you become aware of the smell, you begin to wonder how anything so miniscule could actually create such a scent. You then realize that you might have skin-to-cricket contact. This is ENTIRELY unacceptable. If they smell so horribly, what diseases might they be able to transmit? You begin to forget that you ever tried catching these as a child and that you were never afraid of them when you were a child. Things have changed. You have come to know the crickets as they truly are: disgusting, foraging, beasts. NO touching is acceptable and their demise by gecko is absolutely appropriate. They must die. As you remove some crickets from their home cage and put them in their death cage (inhabited by the geckos) you feel a sense of delight. The crickets will meet their rightful end. As you release the crickets into the cage and witness their painful demise, you hope the geckos don’t become sick after crushing and digesting the dirty insects.

All of that to say:

How incredible is the Lord’s interaction(s) with us!

If my cursed nostrils are disturbed by the imperfections of the crickets, how much more is the holy God disturbed by the aroma of my vile, abominable, dirty as filthy rags, sin?!
When I smell them, I am disgusted and do not want to touch them. I do not want to put even my hands in their “world,” but what has the great God of the UNIVERSE done for us? Can it be that He has gone further than to “remove the lid from our cage” in order to pry us out? Can it be that He chose to remove Himself from His glory and enter the stench of our world?!! How incredible!

I think of my interaction with the vile crickets, I covered my fingers so they would not have to touch the disgusting creatures. Did God the Son do any of that? Did He come to the earth wearing a protective garment? Did He tell everyone to keep their distance because His kingdom is the heavenly and eternal kingdom? Did He declare His holiness and demand that none enter His presence? Not in the least, not as our Savior. Instead, He took the FORM of a vile creature so far below His presence (bond servant) and emptied Himself of His glory. He fully entered into our stench to the point that He was crushed under the pungent fumes and actual rags of our filthy iniquities; this holy God chose to love us and bring us to Himself even though our sin disturbs Him to a far greater extent than we can ever understand.

If even my imperfect olfactory system can detect the poop smell of the crickets, how much more must the holy nostrils of the perfect Creator be disturbed by the sins of my soul?
AND YET! He would enter into our habitat in order to demonstrate His own love toward us and would give up His life for us that we might be called the sons of God! Joint Heirs with Christ! No longer are we the vile creatures, but He has transformed us and brought us into a new and living hope. We are now a sweet and pleasing aroma to Him as we are conformed to the image of His Son and become His righteousness in Christ.

May we forsake our stink and live for Him alone.

Hallelujah!
Amen.