Julie Lavender

CONSIDER THE NUT WEEVIL
by Julie Lavender

Often my walk with God lends itself to a lesson from God’s nature that I can’t miss, like my recent Anhinga post. Who can miss that large bird with his wings outstretched?

But more often than not, I find God’s lessons in the itty-bitty. Like today.

Crawling on the ground and smaller than my pinky-fingernail, the nut weevil almost went unnoticed by me. Those pesky insects don’t go unnoticed by farmers and certain crop growers, however, but usually not until after the irreversible damage has occurred.

Nut weevils are serious pests to nut-bearing trees and cause extensive damage.

Nut-nibblers

The adults feed on the young, soft kernels of pecans and hickory nuts, as well as others. Then, when the nuts begin to harden, the nut weevil uses its unusually long snout to bore a teeny hole in the nut. After doing so, she lays an egg inside the nut. When the grub hatches from the egg, it spends weeks inside the nut, feeding and decimating the inside of the nut.

When the grub is mature, it chews another hole, small still, but larger than the original one that began the destruction, and it drops out onto the ground. Burrowing into the ground where it lands, the grub lives there for a year or more, where it pupates and eventually crawls out as an adult nut weevil, prepared to start the devastation all over again.

Damage-Doers

I thought about the damaging snout of the nut weevil as I continued to walk. I love to learn from God’s creations, remembering that Job told me in God’s word: “ask the animals, and they will teach you” (Job 12:7).  

I pondered the trouble I may have caused in the past, sticking my nose where it didn’t belong, and leaving damaging words and negative thoughts and seeds of doubt.

Cruel words I said to a family member; thoughtless words slung towards a sales clerk I perceived as inefficient; impatience directed at someone younger than me; annoyance thrust at a wait staff who didn’t serve food to my expectations; arrogance dripped on the one I snubbed in the parking lot.

Perhaps the damage wasn’t evident to me at the time. But maybe the erosion was slow and festering, causing irreversible pain and hurt.

And, unfortunately, the venom I spewed could’ve infiltrated another person’s heart and grown such that the bitterness was repeated in another cycle or generation.

Forgive me, Father. For damage that I know I inflicted and erosion that I blatantly disregarded and never even knew I caused. Please help me keep my ‘face’ where it belongs, turned towards you, and away from evil.