Go to the ant you sluggard, consider its ways and be wise…
Proverbs 6:6
If there's one creature that is more numerous than any other around our house and yard, I think it must be the ant!
- they are fascinating little creatures who fill every corner of our world! I have written about them before, but I seem to be continuing to learn from these critters!
Living in the African bush, I have noticed many more types of ants than in urban situations.
It turns out it is not my imagination, but a worldwide issue, which even made it to a news item recently saying that urbanisation is producing 'mediocre' ants - ie only mid-size ants.
But here we have ants of all sizes, from tiny to giant, black, 'white', brown, & bi-colour, and prolific biters and those that we have never had bite us!
When I see them so busy, constantly moving about (at least during the day), I am reminded that it is true that you can never call an ant lazy.
But seeing them scurring all over in my peripheral vision or climbing into our toilet to get water, or just wanting to remove them from making a highway across our bedroom or living room floor, or flick them out of our bed,or discovering them swarming all over the walls of our bedroom, is different from taking the time to actually watch them a little, close up!
Just as the Scripture says, it is worth taking the time to more closely consider the life of the ant.
Some things to learn from ants:
Teamwork
Ants work together, small groups or big groups and they all have a valuable part to play. If every ant just 'sat down' and said, "there are plenty of us, they don't need me" the whole ant community would collapse. They all need each other. Together they are capable of moving items thousands of times larger than just one of them!
Little doesn't mean less!
- of the ants in our garden, the little ones have the biggest bite!
Ants come in all kinds of sizes - in our garden we have a size range from just two millimetres (the super tiny ones), to over 20mm!
We are not all the same, and can know we were created to fulfill our part of a bigger picture, according to our unique giftings
God made different ants to be capable of different tasks.
We don't have to be able to do everything that everyone else does, we just have to do what we were created to do!
Ants have all kinds of roles in the ecosystem (apart from raiding your garbage bin and coming to take those few crumbs you left on the kitchen counter), they clear up dead matter, animal droppings, airate the soil and improve crop production, and some plants even rely on them to scatter seed.
The giant ants in our garden that are over 2cm long (about an inch), are called a:
or Plectroctena Mandibularis
because they munch on Millipedes
and with the size of those 'munchers' it seems they were custom-made for their job
Perseverance and Committment
- they never quit!
- they just go, go, go! Scurring here, scurrying there, meeting one another to pass on a message or whatever they do when they go head to head momentarily on their journey.
These ants below were ones I sat and watched for a while. (and blogged about on a previous occasion They were busy excavating their underground home and in a continuous stream for the maybe half-hour I watched they never stopped coming out of their hole (at the right of the photo under the leaves) and climbing up the 'hill' beside it to deposit the one grain of sand each one was carrying! Over the days they had built quite a mound about 15cm high, of all their single grains of sand!
Organisation and purposeful design
- whether they understand it or not, the Creator has programmed these guys to be highly organised and purpose-driven. They have a goal in mind and they are out to achieve it.
Some of what I saw, on one occasion in the photo below, almost looked like they were having 'round table' planning meetings!
Care for Your Unborn
Unfortunately on one occasion we had need to cause a mass evacuation of ants, with a bit of insect spray, as they had swarmed across a wall of our house and gone inside and were swarming over the inside wall, the shelves and the bed!
But in the process, I noticed something very interesting on the outside wall. Even though it slowed down their ability to escape they gathered up their 'babies' not yet 'born' and tried to take them along. They did not abandon them. They know its important to care for your unborn!
Still Take Time to Rest
Looking busy doesn't mean you never rest. We might not see them do it, but ants do sleep. They are not on the go 24/7.
We need to do what we should do when we should do it, but taking appropriate time to rest is also part of the Creator's plan.
Identify and Deal with the Enemy and Kill it Dead!
Just because others may identify another insect as the same 'kind' as you because it has a few similar features, it doesn't mean its true
('white ants' - ie termites, are not actually ants at all, and in fact true ants will raid and kill termites in an effort to eradicate them as they are 'not tolerated'!…as I watched in the photo below)
We could learn from the ant, to identify and kill sin dead….and don't believe the message of the world around us that discerning sin from righteousness is irrelevent!
Don't be Distracted From Your Goals Just Because of Other Interesting Situations That Turn Up Along the Way
(this large ant just crawled right over the top of those red bugs as he continued on his way)
Remember God Sees, and That Who You Are and What You Do That People Can't See, Is Not Less Important!
- ants nests are primarily underground, what is seen is not the total picture. It's a reminder that man looks on the outward appearance but God look on the heart! 1 Samuel 16:7
No comments:
Post a Comment