Tuesday, June 21, 2011

A is for Ant

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. Proverbs 6:6-8



I have always been fascinated by the ant. They seem to have no purpose, but boy do they work hard. They are always on the move, working their little selves into a frenzy. In my curiosity about these small creatures, I Googled them. I figure if something is going to work that hard the least I can do is find out why. I found many educational and informative answers, but my favorite is this one:
They teach us:
To be active and always busy, to cooperate with others, to follow the leader, to do work to the maximum of our capacity ( Ants can lift more than their weight) to save for the lean period.
They are capable of identifying sweet and bitter. There is a test to verify pure honey. If you put a drop of honey on the floor and if the honey is pure and good, no ant will come nearer to that because honey belongs to the bitter group honey is sugar inverter.  They foretell the weather especially rainy season.
Who knew? Those pesky little creatures that we'd rather step on than bother with actually have quite a purpose. They made it into the Bible, after all. I like to think the main purpose of the ant is God's way of showing us how to work. Even when we seem to have no purpose, we should work for others as if we were working for Him. According to Proverbs, the ant doesn't even have a boss to tell it what to do--he just does what is instinctive without question. What if each of His children worked with this kind of ethic? We could be a force of good for the Kingdom. Something to think about next time you get ready to squish one of these hard workers...now I'm off to find my honey...


6 comments:

Jenifer Metzger said...

Great post Allison! The ant is such a hard worker. What if we all worked for the Kingdom that way?!

Eileen said...

Ants are as fascinating to me as spiders. They work so hard and accomplish so much. Goodness, somedays I would settle for half that much energy!

Unknown said...

Love this! "What if each of His children worked with this kind of ethic? We could be a force of good for the Kingdom." Great post!

Phather Phil Malmstrom said...

Ants really are fascinating creatures, and you're right, we could certainly learn some things from them in serving God's Kingdom.

Have a Blessed Day!

Anonymous said...

Hi Allison. I found your blog from Lisa's and I think your post on ants is great. I believe nothing gets in to the bible for no reason. Hope you don't mind but I'll be following your blog.
God bless
Tracy

Sr Crystal Mary Lindsey said...

Hello Alison,
Gosh we have Fire Ants here in Australia, I once got bitten on the foot and it swelled keeping me off work for three days.. so painful. They eat the vegitation and are harmful to pets. Horrible. Glad you don't have them.