Ants

Tis the season.
The season for cookouts, picnics, eating dinner outside.
The season for ants!

Even if you have a spotlessly clean home, you still are susceptible to ants.
An exterminator told me something I never knew before.
Ants will come in the house where there is moisture.

Hanging baskets on the deck…water plants each day…the deck is next to the kitchen…ants!

I know they are God’s creatures, but I don’t like ants!
Just last weekend, we were seeing quite a few.
I got one of those plastic ant traps, where the ant walks in, takes some of the food, and brings it back to the colony.

There are over 12,000 species of ants.
Ants don’t have ears, but feel the vibrations in the ground through their feet.
Ants don’t have lungs…air enters through tiny holes all over their body.
They exhale the same way.
There are queen ants, female workers, and males.
The queen is the only one that can lay eggs.

I did this research…just for me.
I needed to learn more about them.
I didn’t want my disdain for ants to affect my wonder of God’s design.

As I was at my kitchen sink, I saw an ant going towards the food.
I had placed the plastic container on the windowsill above the sink.
I was utterly amazed!

If you ever watched ants you know that they can carry twenty times their own body weight.
That would be like you or I carrying a car!
In its foraging, the ant was carrying something so huge…it could barely move.
I watched it move forward and back…retracing steps…still carrying its food.
I learned that ants release a pheromone trail so they know where they have been.
That trail will lead them back to the colony.

I saw where the ants were coming from…a small opening in the caulk around the window.
Repeatedly, the ant tried to get through the opening, with no success.
After many tries, the ant managed to get through with the large piece of food intact.

I never got that close to see the world from an ant’s perspective.
It astounded me…the perfection of God’s design.

I remember reading a reprint of an 1836 original book by Charles Williams.
It was entitled, Lessons From Nature For Youth.
It is a wonderful book that follows the verse in Job 12:7.
Ask the animals and they will teach you, and the birds of the air and they will tell you.

There is much we can learn from observing God’s creation.
God, Himself, uses the ant to teach us in His Word.

Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest- and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man. (Proverbs 6:6-11)

After watching the ant on my windowsill, I understood this verse a bit better.
The tenacity and industriousness of the ant are incredible object lessons for us.
How often do we give up…defeated…before we even get started?
How often do we operate with an attitude of entitlement instead of an attitude of good old hard work?
Do we do just enough to get by, or do we carry more than our weight to get the job done?

The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into the harvest field. (Luke 10:2)

We are not much different from the ant.
We carry the food of the Gospel to hungry people.
Unlike the ant I observed, the food we bring to them is life giving.

There is a trail that leads us back to our King.
We will reach a narrow door that many will try to enter and will not be able to.
(Luke 13:24)
But we, who are in Christ, enter the narrow door with the imputed righteousness of Jesus.

We must be as tenacious as the ant I observed.
We have a job to do for our Lord…our King.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we don’t give up. (Galatians 6:9)