The Secret Cricket

Ree-ree-ree-reeeee

I’m an early riser even if I do not have to be at work on a given day. It became ingrained within me several years ago when I used to drive to work down in New Orleans, thus necessitating a need at the time to leave early out of self-preservation due to traffic. These days the solitary stillness before dawn is a great time to meditate on scripture and a perfect time for prayer.

This morning was a normal morning for me, at least during the beginning of it. I got up and grabbed a glass of apple juice and walked into the den as per usual. As I reached for my Bible, a sound caught my ear, a sound that I have heard possibly millions of times during my life. It was a cricket and he was obviously located somewhere within the house - at least it sounded that way. With my advanced age I’ve realized my auditory senses aren’t what they used to be. I started to ignore it, but it is one of those things that once you notice it you simply can’t let it go. He appeared to be getting louder, serenading me in the early morning silence. I had to find him because there are consequences if you don’t.

That’s the thing about crickets; they are often overlooked. If you see a roach or a spider in your house you take immediate action. You call an exterminator or at the very least you grab a shoe and kill them whenever you see them. I can catch a cricket in my hand and more often than not I’ll release him out into the back yard safe and unharmed. I would never do that with a roach (gross!) or a spider (yuck!). They’re dead meat when and if they inadvertently cross my path.

Crickets are nice. I love to listen to them out on the porch during warm, summer nights as it is a sound of home that I have grown accustomed to.

It took a few minutes but I found him over by my abandoned-shoe pile. I easily captured him and carried him over to the back door, returning him back out into the wild. Why did I do this if I like crickets in general and have acclaimed within this page the tunes they play for me? He meant no harm and obviously found something in my old shoes that he liked – at least he appeared to be content in the situation he found himself.

I had my reasons.

You see, despite the fact that crickets play agreeable music and are less-apt to scare you in the manner of their arachnid cousins: they can cause damage when left to their own devices in a human environment. Crickets love to eat fabric. Take a seldom worn shirt or a favorite pair of slacks out of the closet and you will see what I mean. They sneak by under the radar, laughing with glee as we blame the poor moths for the damage that we’ve discovered. So you can’t just leave them alone, ignoring their presence while you listen favorably to their musical ability. You have to throw them out – they will not leave on their own.

The Psalmist writes in chapter 51, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Because I am human I can have a secret part of me despite my outward façade, and I can have sins hidden there that no one will ever find out about. Also, if I live with that sin long enough I may no longer even notice that it is there myself. I can get used to it, much like the proverbial frog in the pot of boiling water, unable to jump out of it until it is too late to do so. The sad part of hidden sin is that it is not hidden. God knows all about it and we cannot hide our transgressions from Him. God searches the inward parts of us, our hearts, and He desires to see truth when He looks in there. It is there in the hidden part of us that God teaches us to learn and know His wisdom.

Hidden crickets can cause a lot of problems if we leave them unattended. Hidden sin can cause us to stray from God and will definitely cool our relationship with Him if we allow it to fester and grow in an unchecked manner. Fortunately for us, God can wash away all of our sins, even the ones we think are secret or the ones we have grown used to. We can be whiter than snow, with His wisdom abiding within our hearts.