The Grasshopper on My Hand

On March 29, 2025, at forty-nine years old, I got my first tattoo.

It isn't much to look at. A little grasshopper on my hand. My friend did it. It took no time at all.

I got it because I knew myself well enough to know that if I didn't put something where I'd have to look at it, I would break my word to God again. I'd already done it for seven years running.

To explain that, I have to take you back.

In 2018 I was on day thirty-nine of a forty-two day fast.

If you've never done a long fast, let me tell you what a man thinks about on day thirty-nine. Not theology. I was lying there planning meals. I had a list. I knew what I was eating first, second, and third, and roughly what order the next two weeks were going to go in.

And that's when the Lord started talking to me about my diet.

Not the fast. The rest of my life. He wanted to change the way I ate when I wasn't fasting.

Now, you need to understand the man He was talking to. I had two settings. I was either fasting or I was feasting. When I fasted, I took nothing but water and coffee. When I wasn't fasting, I ate like a hog at a trough — sugar, fast food, whatever was in front of me, as much of it as I wanted. I'd drop a lot of weight on a fast and put every pound of it back on in a couple of weeks, and then some.

And I'd feel it. I'd get so far away from Him in those stretches that I was almost afraid to pray for anybody. I couldn't hear Him well. I knew what I was, and food was the last thing I had that I hadn't handed over.

So I did what I always do. I made my case.

"Lord, let's just leave food alone. Let me enjoy one thing. You've got pretty much everything else from me — at least let me enjoy a good meal when I'm not fasting."

And He said this to me:

Steve, I'm calling you to live a life that others will not want to live, so others can live lives they're not willing to pay for.

I want you to read that twice, because it's the whole thing.

He wasn't after my waistline. He was telling me there was a place I could reach from, and things I could take hold of there for other people, and that the ticket to it was a life most men wouldn't sign up for.

He was offering me a deal. Give Me this, and I'll give you that.

I said yes in 2018.

And I failed by about the middle of the following month.

I said yes again in 2019, and again the year after that, and then a few more times, and I want to be honest with you about what those years were like, because I think somebody reading this is living in them right now.

I never once felt condemned. That's not how He does it. It was more like a carrot on a stick — the thing just stayed there, out in front of me, year after year. I always knew what was on the other side of it. More reach. More favor. More people getting free. And I always knew exactly what it was going to cost me, and I kept deciding I'd rather have the food.

Seven years. Not seven years of ignorance. Seven years of knowing.

By March of 2025 I had the sense that it wasn't going to stay on the table forever. Not a threat. Just a quiet understanding that an offer left standing that long eventually gets taken off the table, and I'd better decide.

So I said yes. And then I drove over to my friend's shop and had him put a grasshopper on my hand, so that every time I reached for something I had no business reaching for, it would be looking back at me.

Why a grasshopper? John the Baptist. Locusts and wild honey. There is no earthly reason for a man to eat that except that the Holy Spirit told him to, and he said all right.

I keep the particulars of my covenant between me and God. Broad strokes: there are things I don't eat, things I don't drink, and my portions are a good deal smaller than they used to be. I'm a little bit hungry most of the time.

And I'd ask you not to go copy my list. It was never the list. He asked me for a specific thing. He'll ask you for yours.

Now here's the part I didn't see coming, and it's the opposite of what you'd expect.

Living light made the extremes unnecessary.

Back when I was eating garbage, I'd have to fast ten to twenty days just to get to the place where I could hear Him clearly and see miracles happen. Ten to twenty days to travel that far, because I'd let myself get that far off.

I don't live that far off anymore. Now a day, sometimes two, and I'm there. I'm not going to longer and longer lengths to impress God. I go until I cross the line, and then I stop, because I'm already close to it most of the time.

The old-timers had a phrase for this. They talked about keeping the flesh under. Paul said it plainly:

but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified. — 1 Corinthians 9:27

And:

and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. — Romans 8:8 

A Christian can be in the flesh or in the spirit. I can feel which side of that line I'm standing on, and I know the moment I cross over. It happens when I get a little hungry. When I eat a big meal, I'm duller. That's not a rule I'm handing you. That's just a thing I've learned about the particular man God gave me to manage.

And hear me on this, because it matters: do not read this and go starve yourself trying to buy something from God. That's not what happened here and it isn't available. He asked me for consistency, not for extremes — and consistency is what made the extremes unnecessary.

Somewhere in all this you have to decide what you want most.

I like food. I like a lot of food. But I love watching somebody get their miracle more than I love anything I could ever put on a plate, and when it finally came down to one or the other, that's what settled it.

Here's something I've come to believe. Jesus never promised us everything. He promised us anything (John 14:14). There's a world of difference in those two words. 

Everything means you get it all and you hand over nothing. Anything means it's all available — and you're going to have to choose. That's not God being stingy. That's God being honest with you. There's a price on the counter, and He'll let you carry home whatever you're willing to pay for.

I want a miraculous life. I've wanted one for a long time. It just took me seven years to quit haggling over the price. And as for the miracles, I'll take them any size. The little ones are some of my favorites — especially the little ones that turn out to be babies! I have a whole section of pictures on my wall of babies that were born to women who were told they couldn’t get pregnant. 

There was a woman named Cindy. Seven years trying to get pregnant, and nothing. She's a scientist, so you can be sure she'd already run down every option available.

She came up for prayer and my wife Cara asked her what she needed. Cindy told her and Cara said, "Oh, that's an easy one. Steve and I see that healed all the time!" Then she waved me over and we prayed, and that was that.

Two months later we received an e-mail with a picture of an ultrasound and a note:

Hello Uncle Steve and Aunt Cara, I am seven weeks old and have a normal heartbeat. Praise the Lord! Thank you for praying for us.

And underneath, Cindy had added: According to my calculations, I got pregnant within a week of your prayer.

She's a scientist. I'd take her math over mine.

Go back and read that sentence again. So others can live lives they're not willing to pay for.

Cindy is the others.

She didn't fast. She didn't make a covenant about her supper. She walked up to a couple of people at a meeting and asked. And there was somebody standing there close enough to the line to reach a miracle. 

That's the trade. That's the entire arrangement. What God asks you to lay down is almost never for you. It’s about you reaching heaven for someone else.

Most people want to know what an encounter with God feels like.

Here's a better question. What did it leave on you?

Because the encounters in the Bible left marks. Isaiah came out of it saying he was ruined. Moses couldn't look. Saul was blind for three days and had to be led into town by the hand like a child. Jacob wrestled all night, got exactly what he asked for, and limped the rest of his life.

Not one of them just had a nice evening.

So don't ask me whether you've encountered God. Ask yourself what's different. What are you carrying that you weren't carrying before? What did it cost you?

And here's the question I'd really like you to sit with, because I lived on the wrong side of it for seven years:

What has He been holding out to you that you keep saying no to?

You know what it is. You knew before you finished the sentence. You've had the conversation with Him more than once, and you've explained why now isn't the time, and you weren't lying — you just weren't willing.

It's still on the table. But not forever.

You may not need a tattoo, but you might need something more than good intentions. You need something that looks back at you.

Mine's a grasshopper.