Remember the last time you stumbled into your kitchen, flicked on the lights, and saw hundreds of sugar ants scurrying over your counters? As you reached for the Windex (instant death), they sensed danger and quickly disappeared into the woodwork. Others retreated down the sideboard to the floor, across the room, and disappeared under the carpet ten feet away. Though a nuisance, the Bible informs us that these pesky little six-legged creatures can teach humans the valuable lesson of diligence. On a side note: it’s amazing how fast ants can run.
“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. How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest— and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.” (Proverbs 6:6–11, NIV84)
Ants don’t need a leader to motivate them to work. They never gather together, waiting for another ant to hand out daily work assignments. None of the ants blow revelry or run through their colony yelling, “Rise and shine.” The only time I’ve seen ants standing still is when they are eating. Otherwise, they are always active. Unlike the ant, I wasn’t one to jump out of bed and get moving quite so fast. When I was young, my mom would enter my bedroom multiple times, repeating the same thing, “Time to get up.” However, when she left my room, it seemed so easy to snuggle down and fall back asleep. I wouldn’t get up until my mom got fed up and yanked the blankets off me.
The biblical term for my sleep-in is the unpleasant word, sluggard. “As a door turns on its hinges, so a sluggard turns on his bed.” (Proverbs 26:14) When you hear that word, doesn’t it paint in your mind the picture of a banana slug slowly crawling across your sidewalk?
In addition to being examples of diligence, ants also teach us the value of cooperation, humility, and generosity.
- DILIGENCE – It doesn’t matter the weather, ants go looking for food. Ants are industrious, self-starters.
- COOPERATION – On an OPB program about ants, it observed that in order to get across a wide stream, some ants would walk out on the water (not sinking due to water’s surface tension). Immediately other ants walked on their backs, until finally thousands had formed an “ant raft.” Then the entire colony would float down the stream to the other side. If the stream wasn’t too wide, they’d employ the same procedure to create an “ant bridge” across it.
- HUMILITY – None of the ants who first walked onto the water’s surface refused to be climbed over by the other ants. They were willing to do their part for the good of the colony. You don’t find wounded egos among ants.
- GENEROSITY – It doesn’t take long for one ant who finds food to transmit directions to the rest of the colony. Rather than hoarding the food or keeping its location a secret, the first ant to find food quickly shares the location with others.
Christians should be diligent, cooperative, humble and generous like the ant, both on the job and in our walk with the Lord. Laziness has no place in the life of the Christ-follower. “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.” (1 Thessalonians 4:11–12)
Normally, you’d never think of Jesus as an ant. He was a giant among men. But He possessed all four of these qualities (and more) of the ant. He was DILIGENT about carrying out His rescue mission to redeem people from sin, COOPERATIVE with His heavenly Father in working out the Heavenly plan, HUMBLE to leave His place of honor in Heaven to become a man, and GENEROUS to give His life on the cross to pay the judgment our sins deserved.
Jesus urges you to invite Him into your life and follow Him. Have you responded to His prompting yet?
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