Christians vs. Ants

8/2/2019 Christians vs. Ants

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Christians vs. Ants

Proverbs 6:6-9

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.

God, thank you for your creation: the warming summer sun, the beautiful nature and

even those creepy crawly ants that I personally find annoying and disgusting. Thank

you for them and I just marvel at the way you made them, and us, and everything. I

love you. You're amazing. Help me better understand the ways of the ant and what I

can learn from them. Amen

Okay, maybe this seems like the most random verse in the whole Bible, and it probably

is at first glance, but everything and every single word in the Bible was written with

purpose! So let's try to see what we can get out of this passage =)

But first, I wanna tell a story about my recent experience with nature! I was out for a

hike this morning and it was a really sunny day! Really nice weather, but if you know

me at all, I sweat a LOT and really easily, so I got hot pretty quickly! Even with the

shade from the trees and everything Anyways, at the end of the hike, there was a

beautiful waterfall. Cold, fresh, flowing water, and I was just in awe of God's creation.

I also found it really cool from an engineering perspective. It's amazing how river water

is kept cool by either getting cooled at night, or the melting of snow, or whatever else

keeps it cool, and it's always flowing down stream (obviously due to gravity). It acts as

a natural air conditioning as it cools the air around it though forced convection! It made

such a nice atmosphere, and the air around the waterfall was so clean and refreshing!

With all the technology and engineering we're capable of, we can't come close to the

amazing things our God has created for us! Anyways, thats my nature story that had

nothing to do with ants. =D

Okay, let's talk about ants now!

Proverbs 6:6-9

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.


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So, this passage isn't literally telling us to "go" to an ant It's saying how we should

observe the ant and see how it operates and see what we can learn from it. It's also

calling us lazy, which, may be accurate, so let's not take offence right away. The verse

also gives us a head start on our research on the ant, and tells us about how they canstore up enough food during the harvest, probably for times when they won't have food.

They also do this without any leadership whatsoever!

Okay, so, so far, we know that they know how to plan ahead for the future regarding

their food, and they don't need leadership to do that. I guess we sorta all know how to

do that too, so why is this verse calling us lazy?? Let's dig a bit deeper and do some

more research into the ways of the ant!

So, I was watching a documentary about ants sometime last week. I know, nerdy, but

whatever, that's what I do on my free time. They're actually pretty amazing little

creatures. Of course, there's many many types of ants out there. Over 22, 000 species

to be exact! One thing I found pretty fascinating was that several species of ants have

pets like us! They're the only other creature on earth that has pets besides us humans!

These ants have this smaller bug as a pet that they carry around and feed and take

care of. I think they get something out of this relationship with this "pet" of theirs, but

the only thing I remember is that they have pets and found it pretty cool. Just one way

we can relate to the ant.

Other cool things I found out, that we can't really relate to, were that they can defend

themselves by biting, stinging or spaying chemicals at it's predators, they can carry up

to 50 times their weight, they move about 50 tons of soil per square mile per year, a

single colony can kill up to 100, 000 insects a day, and of the five senses that we have,

they only have the ability to touch and smell. That's not it, they're quite a lot more

impressive as a group!

The documentary I watched also showed pictures and clips of the biggest ant hill that

we've found so far. It stretches over a 4000 mile distance and is, well, was home to

literally billions of ants! The reason I say "was" is because scientists filled the ant hill

structure with concrete to dig it up and study it. It took over 10 tons of concrete to fill the

whole structure! They had no idea it would be THAT big.


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From an engineering perspective again (I'm an engineering student if you didn't catch

that), it's amazing how a group of billions of ants can come together to build such a

huge and impressive structure! An underground structure that supports itself even

when bigger animals or humans walk on the ground above and can house so many

creatures, while having separate rooms for farming food, storing food, nursing eggs,and whatever else they do. Scientists also don't know how ants communicate, but

however they do, it must be a lot more efficient than our communication methods, cause

we could never pull something so large scale off! Even trying to communicate between

two businesses is usually a mess! Never mind billions of different workers!

Another thing that caught my attention was how they were so group- focused. The ant

colony truly acts like a community. Each ant has its own role in building the colony, and

they perform their roles to the best of their ability. That's what the documentary said at

least. There might be the odd slacker that's on Facebook instead of building tunnels or

something? You never know. =P

Ants would also sacrifice anything for the future of the colony, including their lives. The

documentary showed a clip of a bear looking for food in an ant hill, and how the ants

would spray formic acid at the bear, irritating its eyes, making it hard for the bear to see

and breathe and, in time, causing the bear to look somewhere else for food. In this one

incident, many ants would have died, but the overall goal and the future of the colony

was protected. I thought it was pretty cool how all the ants had that mutualunderstanding that the colony comes first, even to the death.

From just these two things: how a colony of ants truly acts and functions as a

community, and how they would give anything to defend the colony, its purpose and its

future, I started to see how there are actually so many things we can, and should, learn

from ants! How we, as Christians, and as part of the colony of Christ, need to figure out

what our roles are and play our own roles in the body of Christ. We need to continually

support each other and make sure that we're performing our roles to the best of our

ability. My dad used to always say this to me and Kristen: "Always do at the right thing

at the right time using the right method with the right heart." Of course, this shouldn't be

seen as a "role" or "duty" that we have to do. I was thinking of how each ant is

supposed to, or somehow knows, what it's role is supposed to be in the colony. The

queen ant doesn't actually "rule" the ants, she's just the one that lays eggs so she's not

the one that tells everyone what to do. Like the passage says, they have no


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commander, ruler or overseer, so how do they know what to do? I think that their form

of communication is similar to how we need to be in tune with the Holy Spirit and

constantly receive guidance as to what we need to do and when we need to do it. And I

think if we see the "colony," or the body of Christ, as a priority in our lives, then the "right

heart" will naturally come along too.

That's the other thing we need to learn from ants. How to treat the colony, its purpose

and its future as our priority; the colony, being the church or body of Christ. What is the

purpose of the church and for Christians? The first thing I think of when I think about

the purpose of the church and for Christians is the Great Commission.

Matthew 28:19-20

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father

and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have

commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

I personally always forget about this major purpose, and how this is the overall goal and

task that was given to the church by Jesus himself. The way we act, the things we say,

the way we think, and the way we live should all be done in a manner that moves us

closer to accomplishing this goal. It's so hard to put this as a priority, but when I read

the "ant passage" again, I thought that maybe the word "harvest" could have a double

meaning. "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few." Ahhh? I thought it was acool correlation. So, if I take this view of "the harvest" and knowledge of the ant, I think

I deserve to be called a "sluggard" or "lazy," and I think a lot of us Christians do

unfortunately.

Hopefully we can all learn a lesson from these ants, and be reminded of it every time we

see them around, hopefully not in our houses!

God, thank you so much for ants, and how I can learn so much from them. Please help

me be constantly in tune with the Holy Spirit so that I can know my role in your colony.

My colony. God, I pray that you would give me the strength and heart to learn how to

treat the purposes of the church and goals in the Great Commission as my own

purposes and my own goals. Give me a heart that is perfectly in line with yours so that

I'll be able to always do the right thing at the right time using the right method with the

right heart. Amen


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PS: I first just started writing these thoughts on TextEdit to get my thoughts down, and it

ended up becoming a sermon-style note. Decided to post it to share my thoughts =)

Christians vs. Ants

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