Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. (Proverbs 6:6-8)
TIME AND AGAIN, the Lord points us to things He has made to get our attention. When I drive under an expressway bridge or board an airliner, I’m consciously aware that an engineer has been there before me. It’s for sure that a Boeing 747 did not suddenly rise out of a heap of crushed cars in a junk yard. Come to think of it, somebody must have designed the Toyota we’ve been driving from place to place.
I AM IMPRESSED NO LESS BY A MOUND OF FIRE ANTS! Who taught them to build it that way? The Bible tells us they have no guide, overseer or ruler. When I was a barefooted boy, I spent a lot of time watching ants go to and fro, carrying heavy loads. If they found something dead, they would move it toward the hive, carrying it or dragging it. Sometimes several would get together and move a treasure toward home. It was years later that I found ants in the Bible.
I LIKE TO WATCH DIRT DAUBERS working on their house. Barbara’s mother, Willie Mae, was especially fond of dirt daubers. They made a mess on our brick wall but that wasn’t as important as listening to the little engineers singing and working all day long.
THEY HAD TO FETCH MUD AND WATER to shape their house to the design that was in every one of them. After the house was built, they gathered bugs and spiders and stored them inside their house. They laid eggs and when the eggs hatched, the babies had food to eat. Who taught mud daubers how to build a house and provide food for their babies? Are you sure you want to ignore the hundreds of designs all around you that prove a highly intelligent God is working around you every day? Does it remind you that this same God made you and that you will one day meet Him, face-to-face?
IT WOULD TAKE A VERY BIG BOOK to include all the little engineers God has made. Not only are they specialists in what they build, but they also guard their domain. They all have some means of defense. Do you despise the pesky, aggravating mosquitos that bite you in the afternoon while you’re trying to work? Or the one that’s in your bedroom after the light is turned out and you are slapping yourself, trying to kill him? The mosquito has a beating heart…and a game plan.
DID YOU EVER RUN A LAWN MOWER over a Yellow Jacket hole in the ground? They know what to do if that happens. They all know who is driving the lawnmower. They won’t sting you until you are a threat. I ran a riding mower over a nest in the ground and was covered up before I knew what was happening. I ran toward the house, shucking off my clothes as I ran. Then, another year, there was the nest in the bank where I was weed eating. Why don’t they build nests like all the other bees?
HAVE YOU NOTICED THAT WHEN THE WASPS are making their paper nests they leave one wasp to guard their house? Wasps know how big and in what shape to make the individual shell and how to fasten them all together. One of the amazing things about the wasp is how they build the stem that their house is fastened to. It’s not paper! If you knock the house down, you may have some trouble removing the base of the stem that is fastened to the ceiling.
HORNETS? WOW! WHAT BUILDERS THEY ARE, and they love house flies. They’ll come right up to your front door going after flies. The flies get scarce when hornets are building a nest. After a while it’s no flies, but….plenty of hornets! When I was about five, one day my daddy went to sleep in a rocking chair on our front porch. He had taken his teeth out and his mouth had drooped open. A hornet was chasing a fly. The fly went into daddy’s mouth and the hornet went in after it. Action!
I WATCHED THE WHOLE THING; it happened so fast! Dad woke up with a start and started digging the hornet out of his mouth. I know it hurt, but for a few seconds, it was the most fascinating thing I had ever seen. The little engineers don’t waste their time. That is, unless it’s the lowly house fly. Did you ever step on a house fly? Me neither. I never knew of anyone stepping on a house fly. You may step on a wasp but not on a housefly.
We don’t have room to talk about the fascinating world of spiders, birds, beavers, cats, dogs, horses and elephants and the whole wide world of sea creatures from sardines to giant blue whales.
ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO PLAY LIKE there is no God? I don’t know why wasps have stingers and mosquitos can outwit a grown man. They are all God’s messengers telling us there is an all-wise God of infinite variety who made all these things. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: (Romans 1:20)
GOD IS SHOWING US SOMETHING: “It is appointed unto men once to die and after this the judgment.” Hebrews 9:27 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) Ω
Read Through the Bible in a Year
OCTOBER 10, 2019 - THURSDAY
A.M. Isaiah 43-44 P.M. Colossians 2
(Bible Gateway will read this to you if you like. Look for the speaker icon.)
Memory Verse This Month:
And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. (Luke 24:44)
Song for Today:
Farther Along (8:04) (Joni Eareckson Tada & Gaither Group) Joni has been in a wheelchair since a teenager, and is qualified to lead us in this song. (Born: Oct.15, 1949 - age 69 years)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h491ur_iAw
● Joni’s personal testimony – 28 minutes – PLEASE WATCH!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1kjbYPGMBE
You may need to adjust your volume