Another Look At The Ant
Categories: Church of Christ Bulletin Articles
From my childhood days, I’ve always been fascinated by God’s little amazing creatures called the ant (Proverbs 6:6-8). They scurry to and fro each day just like clock work (like they were preprogrammed), gathering food stock to be stored for the winter, so they can survive. Solomon uses the ant to applaud hard work and industry versus the lazy individual who could work, but doesn’t see the need to do so. Eventually, these individuals will find out the hard way, that being lazy is not going to feed their face, and they will end up in a state of poverty (Proverbs 6:9-11).
There’s another wonder to behold when observing the ant. The ant is one of the greatest engineers known to man.
One writer observed the ant‘s engineering skills thusly:
“Every ant colony is an architectural feat that displays ants’ engineering prowess. Every chamber and connecting corridor that leads to another vault is carefully and calculatedly executed. All the rooms are set at the correct depth and scale and all corridors are the paradigms of efficiency. Each tunnel is set at the optimum angle and is almost perfectly straight. This means that the worker ants expend the least amount of energy possible as they transport food and raw materials into the colony.
Perhaps even more mind-boggling is their air conditioning system. Ants construct their colonies in such a way as to funnel out poisonous carbon dioxide and bring in its place fresh, clean air.
The colony is incredibly organized and works in a hierarchy in that ants are born at the very bottom and work their way upwards somewhat like a pyramid. The colony themselves or ‘nests’ are sometimes up to ten feet deep and each room or chamber is devoted to separate functions” (source). Also see video 1 and video 2.
As I mentioned in the first paragraph of this article, the ant has seemingly been preprogrammed to accomplish a certain purpose in life, and they diligently go about accomplishing that very purpose.
A question. Who programmed these little creatures to be so industrious, with all of their engineering skills? Folks, there can only be one logical answer. The Great Designer designed and programmed them to fulfill their purpose and existence in life.
The Great Designer created mankind as His crowning creative achievement (Genesis 1:26-31). However, the major difference between us and the ant, is that He gave mankind the ability to “choose” (free will) whether or not to fulfill His purpose for our lives (Joshua 24:14-15); cf. Isaiah 43:7; Psalm 86:9; Ecclesiastes 12:13; Matthew 5:14-16).
The question is, are we “choosing” to willingly fulfill God’s purpose for our lives?
Let’s think about it!