We can learn a lot from ants. This past week, I got the opportunity to
learn up close and personal as the warm weather brought a few of them up from
under our house and into our living room (exterminator will be here
tomorrow!)! We haven’t figured out what
the draw was since there wasn’t any loose food or other ant-friendly things in
that room, but at least one tiny ant chose to breach the barrier we all had
agreed upon and find its way under a random part of our floor molding. What happened next is where the teaching and
learning took place.
With very few stray exceptions
(less than I could count on one hand), the first ant led a literal parade of
ants in single-file over to the edge of our room-size rectangular area
rug. It then turned left to follow the
edge of the rug its entire length, then right at the corner to continue
following the edge of the rug. I caught
up with the string of ants before they reached another corner, but I’m sure they
would have kept turning right at the next two corners until they made it back
to where they started. Not one ant went
either over or under the rug – they did not deviate from their marching orders!
I couldn’t help but see the
spiritual connection. How many times do
people blindly follow the leader of some sin or other evil in our culture
without questioning anything? Even as
Christians, we often assume that whatever everyone else is doing is something
that is worth doing or important for us to do.
We may not follow the worst choices in our culture, but we seem to
easily follow those within our “Christian” circle without fully examining
everything and looking to God’s Word for our direction.
Conversely, I also thought about
how hard it seems to be for us sometimes to follow God without
questioning. We want him to explain
everything to us or show us the full picture before we will simply trust him
with childlike (or ant-like) faith. We
like to apply our reasoning skills and logic to our walk with God, which almost
always has disastrous results. The whole
point of faith is venturing into the unknown and trusting the Leader – not
having everything figured out before we step out in faith.
What do you need to learn from the
ant? Do you need to trust God your
leader more and be willing to step out in faith in some area where you’ve been
afraid in the past? Or do you need to
stop following the wrong leaders and make better choices? Or maybe, like most of us, it’s a combination
of both. The next time you see an ant,
think about what God might want you to learn from these tiny creatures. If you’re like me, God is always teaching
something new just when we need it most.
