CONSIDER THE ANT!

In my neck of the woods, ants are a problem! I first noticed these little pests when we moved in and one day, upon entering my kitchen, I saw an army of them on my countertop! Where had they come from? I had no idea. What were they after? Who knows! All I knew was I didn't want to see them! Anyone who knows me, knows I don't do bugs! So, I immediately began to devise a plan to get rid of them and googled ways to keep them at bay! Everything I read said that they were not easy to eliminate. When you see one, there's usually a bajillion more. So, it would take meticulousness and strategy to keep them away. And that I did! But while they are mostly gone, I still see them every so often and have to apply the same strategy, as before, to rid myself of them.

A quick Wikipedia search tells us this about ants: they are social insects that live in highly organized colonies. They have colonized almost every land mass on the planet! Their success in so many environments is attributed to their organization, their ability to modify habitats, tap resources and defend themselves. They can carry 10-50 times their body weight and I've seen it as they scurry along carrying breadcrumbs that are larger than them. If their colony is disturbed, they quickly pivot and split into multiple nests. They're most active in spring and summer but I've seen them in winter crawling around looking for food sources. And when one gets in, I absolutely believe it goes and calls the others. They are persistent, never tiring of the work at hand, aggressive, pushing forward despite the conditions (heat, cold, wet, dry) and invasive (it's never just one; they spread out and then they're everywhere!)

As much as I hated to see them, I was totally impressed and intrigued by their unity and their persistence. I began to wonder 'what if the body of Christ pulled together and worked like these ants'. Proverbs 6:6 reads, "Go to the ant, o sluggard; consider her ways and be wise." In the grand scheme of things, they are a but a speck of dust but scriptures tell us they are exceedingly shrewd and intelligent. So, what if the church of Jesus Christ united, moved and functioned like a colony of ants? What could we accomplish for the Kingdom? What if we understood that no matter what is happening in the world, we are on assignment and must keep at the work at hand in order to advance God's agenda in the earth? Ants are determined, purposefully laboring together for the good of the colony and the advancement of their agenda. They keep moving...fast and in a hurry. They have an urgency that the people of God do not possess! Nothing will keep them from doing the necessary work. If some of them die, the rest remove the bodies and keep on working.

We can learn so much from the tiny ant. So small are they that if your eyes are bad, you'll miss them. But they are big in purpose, determination, resilience and resolve. The people of God ought to take a page out of their book. The harvest is ripe, but the laborers are few and, in these end times, we need to adopt the attitude of the ant. Forging onward for Christ as a unified army, despite conditions and circumstances, what we see, what we don't see, what we have or don't have, how we feel or who's supporting us or not. We could accomplish so much more if we banded together. There is much work to be done, and the goal is to see "His kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven!"

~Dania Roberts