In my country we don’t suffer from swarms of locusts. We don’t experience every growing thing being stripped away. Ours is not the starvation and famine that must follow. But many places in the world do. Thinking back and reading the story of the Egyptians in the time of Moses after the plague of locusts and the other plagues, devastation would have happened.
Today many countries are suffering famine not through locusts but war. There are wars that are stripping the land of vegetation because of bombing. I think of the fields that are no longer being planted because of fear of overhead attacks, places where buildings and homes are bombed into rubble.
I remember at the age of about six asking my mother to send my brussel sprouts to the hungry children of Africa. In my young mind I didn’t realise there were other countries round where there was hunger. Nor did I realise what war was. I still dislike watching food programmes on the television, where much food must be wasted. Famine is very real today.
There are countries involved in tit-for-tat wars with devastating results. These countries will probably never regain prosperity in our life-times. What a wicked waste is war! We can only pray as Pharoah did ‘We have sinned against the Lord our God. Now therefore, forgive our sin.’ Exodus 10:16