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If you live in the eastern and midwestern regions of the United States, I have one message for you:  get ready.

In these areas of the country, mysterious invaders are tunneling from their underground lairs and emerging in massive ranks.  They’re overrunning cities, forests, and even backyards.  Does this sound like a scenario from science fiction?  Fear not—these “invaders” have only friendly intentions.  In fact, they are actually one of North America’s most fascinating insect species—periodical cicadas.

Cicadas are pervasive insects, with a worldwide population of three to four thousand species, but the seven species classified as periodical cicadas are found only in North America.  The word periodical refers to the unusual lifestyle of these intriguing insects; indeed, their lives are so amazing that their genus name, Magicicada, literally means “magician cicada.”  

And truly, the story is magical.  When these cicadas’ eggs hatch, the young cicadas, or larvae, burrow underground.  There, they remain for seventeen years (or thirteen, in some species), munching on roots and gradually developing into their adult forms.  After their allotted time underground, they emerge in a synchronized swarm.  It’s not infrequent for several billion cicadas to flood their territories at once, laying their own eggs and initiating the cycle once again.  

Scientists refer to these synchronized swarms as “broods” and name each one based on its geographical range and year of emergence.  One of these, Brood X, is not only the most widely-distributed brood but also the one making headlines this year.  After nearly two decades of languishing underground, these cicadas are rising to see the sun. 

Some people are frightened by these insects, confusing them with their more sinister cousins, locusts.  In fact, when a mass eruption occurred in 1634, the Pilgrim settlers panicked, reminded of Biblical plagues; William Bradford recorded that “there was a numerous company of Flies which were like for bigness unto wasps or Bumble-Bees; they came out of little holes in the ground, and did eat up the green things, and made such a constant yelling noise as made the woods ring of them, and ready to deafen the hearers.”  Truly, these insects can look somewhat alarming, with their tentlike wings and burnished shells and staring red eyes.  But they’re actually very innocuous.  They don’t bite or sting, they’re not poisonous to animals, and they won’t cause widespread agricultural harm.  In fact, they even perform some very beneficial roles in the ecosystem, such as providing fertilizer, increasing soil aeration, and pruning vegetation to encourage growth.  

In Arkansas, I’m in the territory not of Brood X but of Broods XIX and XXIII, both composed of thirteen-year cicadas.  Brood XXIII last emerged in 2015, and Brood XIX won’t erupt again until 2024.  However, we do have annual species here that sing for us each summer.  Inspired by the magic of Brood X, I’ve been paying more heed than usual to these often-overlooked creatures.  As I’ve traveled the country roads near my house, I’ve heard the rattling ring of their ceaseless song, like the throbbing heart of summer itself.  And as I search the flickering light of the treetop canopy for a glimpse of the summertime singers, I’m struck by a realization:  these cicadas know about patience, and persistence, and most of all, preparation.

Just think about it:  the members of Brood X began as eggs seventeen years ago.  When they last saw the sun, Bill Clinton was President of the United States, Michael Phelps had just won his first gold medal in the Athens Olympics, and Facebook was a new and nebulous commodity only two months old and not even available to the public yet.  In the midst of a bustling world, these cicada larvae quietly slipped underground.  For the next seventeen years, humble and hidden, they must have dreamed of the day they’d emerge.  

The cicadas’ journey has ended in more ways than one.  Their aboveground life is a mere heartbeat—only four to six weeks in length.  They’ll live just long enough to lay the eggs that will become the cicadas of 2038.  They’ve spent seventeen years underground preparing for thirty to fifty days.  Yet when I picture them swirling on lacy wings, when I imagine the pulsing chorus, like a great June choir singing of summer, then I can’t help but believe that they infuse all the dreams and growth of the last seventeen years into this one beautiful window.  Maybe the glory of the cicadas’ days in the sun is the ripened harvest of their patience for the last seventeen years.  

Perhaps the saga of the cicadas captivates me so much because we can all relate to them at times.  Like these insects, we know the feeling of spending seemingly endless days “underground.”  Granted, we probably haven’t been submerged in soil on a diet of roots, but we’ve all felt at times as if we’re hidden away, buried beneath layers of mundanity.  

Oh, things begin promisingly enough.  We realize we have a role to play in the Kingdom.  A dream sparkles in our hearts, just waiting to come true.  A divine desire ignites our souls.  Like those infant cicada larvae, our hopes seem to be hatched into a whole world of possibilities.  

And then, right when we expect it least, we’re sent underground. 

The melody of miracles screeches to a halt.  We don’t get the call back.  The relationship sours.  The opportunity never comes.  The work doesn’t pay off.  Whatever the specifics, we’re drawn away from the smiling sunlight into the shadows of the soil.  Obscurity clouds our days.

It’s tempting to drown in the discouragement.  But what we often don’t realize is that time underground is a grace to be embraced.  This isn’t time wasted; it’s time invested. 

Just think about the cicadas.  They can’t spring straightway from an egg to a full-grown adult without time to grow.  And the same is true for us.  God isn’t going to launch us into the center of a calling for which we’re not prepared.  Instead, He takes His time with us…time to smooth the rough edges of our souls, time to prune away each lie, time to slowly bring the seeds of His purposes in our hearts into bloom.  Indeed, in the economy of God, every season of miracles is preceded by a season of silence—because the days “underground,” the days of prayer and preparation, of growth and grace, of patience and persistence, must outweigh the days in the sun.  

The most powerful example is that of Jesus.  We tend to picture His time on this planet as a constant crescendo from the moment of His birth to the triumph of His Resurrection.  But what we forget is that Jesus’ entire earthly ministry was compressed into the brief span of a mere three years—and those three years only came after He had spent thirty years in silence.

Think about it.  God’s Son had come to earth—and He would only be here for thirty-three years!  With so much eternity to distill into so pitifully few moments, we’d expect to see Jesus in constant motion, blurred in busyness.  Instead, the Son of God spent three decades doing nothing but ordinary things.  He helped His parents around the house.  He joked with His brothers.  He enjoyed the traditional feasts.  He performed the daily work of a craftsman.  Did He ever feel impatient?  Did He grow weary?  Did He long to leave the carpenter’s shop and embark on His true calling—the cosmic mission for which He’d come to this sphere?  

I’ll never know the answers to these questions until I kiss His nail-pierced hands and ask Him myself.  But this I do know:  if He ever felt the scourge of impatience, He didn’t yield to it.  Like the cicadas, He remained “underground”—unnoticed, overlooked, beneath the level of the world’s gaze—until it was His time to shine.  And here’s the astonishing truth:  He spent three decades in preparation for three years.  

I find this amazing, because this is Jesus we’re discussing.  Obviously, as God’s Son, Jesus had all resources in every realm at His disposal.  He held eternity in His hands and enjoyed an unbroken ribbon of relationship with the Father…yet He still clearly believed that a time of preparation for His calling was essential.  So if even Jesus willingly chose time “underground” before His mission, how arrogant it would be for us to assume we don’t need the same!   

But there’s a problem.

The problem is that when we’re “underground,” we can’t make our hearts match our minds.  We might nod our heads in mental assent, but as mundane days march by, God’s preparation doesn’t feel like a grace to be embraced.  Instead, it feels like an endless rut, a book in which each page is the same, a mire of monotony in which we’re slowly sinking.  We fret, we fuss, and we fling our complaints Heavenward.  

Why?  What keeps us from accepting our time of preparation?  Perhaps the biggest factor is impatience.  Humans are naturally people of the now, and modern culture has only inflamed this weakness.  In the fast-paced world of microwaves and drive-thrus and speedy checkouts, we’re trained to believe that the faster the speed, the closer the goal.  If every moment doesn’t see us ticking off another mile in the frenetic dash toward our goals, we feel as if we’re stagnating. 

And riding astride our impatience is fear.  After all, to submit to time underground means we have to trust God’s timing entirely.  And what if His schedule doesn’t sync with ours?  Worse yet, what if He never fulfills our requests at all?  With each week, or month, or year that goes by, our anxiety augments.  We can even begin to believe that we’ve been forgotten by God—that He Who buried us with loving care underground may have become too busy in the sunlit world to remember us in the shadows.  

These are natural human responses.  But what if we had a different attitude altogether?

I’m convinced that the secret is to wait well—to allow God to do His work in us.  When we’re underground, we can struggle against God, bemoaning our fate and insisting that He change it.  Or we can lovingly accept His direction and submit to His leading.  So how can we embrace His preparation?   

First, we must believe that God has not abandoned us.  The same God Who humbly submitted Himself to three decades of underground time is using this season not to hide us, but to hone us.  He hasn’t buried us so we can languish in nonentity; he’s buried us so we can be reborn in a way no one could have foreseen.  

Next, we must resolve to maximize this season.  When we’re underground, all we want is to escape as quickly as possible.  But to do so would be to cheat ourselves of the tremendous opportunity God has placed before us to grow.  Practice walking with the Spirit; soak yourself in the Presence of God.  Wisely invest your time underground in becoming spiritually stronger.  

Lastly, be ready to rise when the time is right.  Trust me—the time will come when God says, “Move.”  It may be tomorrow.  It may be next week or next month or next year—or in seventeen years!  But it will come.  And when you hear His voice, remember that this is the moment for which you’ve been prepared.  The days in the darkness are the path to your season in the sun.  

In these early June days, the cicadas’ song sizzles all around.  And when I hear it, I smile…because I understand.  You see, I’ve languished in my “underground” seasons.  I’ve been weary in the waiting more times than I can count.  I’ve expected the road to be shorter, easier, and much, much sunnier than it has been. I’ve felt invisible when opportunities seemed to skim over my head like summer clouds.  

But I believe.

I believe that in every moment of mundanity, God is growing me.  I believe that He is preparing me—not for my own plans, but for the good works He has ordained for me.  I believe that I can wisely respond to His preparation by allowing Him to hold my heart.  And most of all, I believe that in whatever season I find myself, whether I’m huddled underground or soaking in the sun, He will grant me the faith to follow Him. 

Did you enjoy this post? Are you seeing cicadas in your part of the country? Let me know in the comments!

Also, if you’d like to read more about cicadas and Brood X, please check out these great resources, from which the facts in this blog were taken: the National Wildlife Federation, THV11, CBS News, Science NetLinks, and EarthSky. You can find a map of the different cicada broods here!