Skip to main content

Ants Before a Giant Foot...


Every little boy seems to have stumbled across an ant hill.   Disturb that hill only a bit and you will see hundreds of ants pour from it doing the work they were created to do.  They continue, having little idea that, in one moment, the boy can bring down a larger foot and crush their work into an unrecognizable mass. They are so focused on their existence, that they fail to see the potential for danger around them.

Do we mirror the ants behavior?  Have we become so tuned into ourselves that we fail to see the potential danger occurring all around us?  As believers we are all subject to spiritual warfare, yet how many consider that anything we may be facing can, and often should, be attributed to a work of Satan as compared to 'personality clash', 'poor relationships' or 'people problems.'

Even simply in our day to day, we can mirror the ants before a giant foot. Some of us have adopted carnal thinking that we must pursue certain things in order to find satisfaction.  Our American dream will have us on the quest for more, on the acquisition of stuff, position or power, as compared to following the path that Jesus said, "For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it." Matt 16:25.

I want to spell out the last verse - to save your life you must give it away. To give it away means that you will truly have a life worth coveting.

Its time we examine life below the boot.  I offer you this verse today that gave me pause:

13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them. James 4:13-17

Our world teaches us that we are in control, or at minimum we must strive to control every situation.  A believer must come to a radically different conclusion, best expressed through a formally popular song by Steve Curtis Chapman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz94NQ5HRyk.  This song displays the contrast between living for self and living sold out to Jesus.  It displays the contrast of laying down your life versus trying to script every moment to live a certain image before men.

James lays it out plainly.  It is arrogant to think that we whose life is but a vapor have any control over our long term success.  Everything we have or can gain, as a believer or not, is a gift of heaven.   The difference between a believer and carnal man needs to be seen in this: a believer is vying for eternal life, effecting now and effecting eternity.  The carnal man may achieve satisfaction in this life, but only failure in the next.

As a believer I hear the truth echoed by General Maximus in the movie Gladiator, 
Image result for what we do in life echoes in eternity

So we need disengage self from our day to day and seek the plan of God.  We need avoid the arrogant positioning of ourselves to try and achieve what is God's alone to give.  We must be incredibly careful with our hearts being revealed by our words; especially as they praise ourselves.   The Bible says, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" Luke 6:45.  May God change us to have our words reveal a heart that says "All to Jesus I surrender.  All to Him I freely give..."

Image result for i surrender all

Because God is a God of love, His desire is not to have the works of our hands destroyed.  God's desire is what we build with our hands be driven by His plan, power and presence.  Have those 3 p's expressed in your life and you will know the boot long before the boot knows you.  Try to do it on your own, God will use the boot to correct you.
















Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Questioning God

Solomon wrote "There is a season for everything." The Byrds took that knowledge and sang "Turn Turn Turn."  Both understood that existence has moments, times and seasons that separate themselves from the normal hum-drum of life.  These ticks of the clock can be incredibly rich, such as times of great joy seen in new marriage, the birth of a new baby, or moving and starting fresh, but they can also be very hurtful and joyless.   Life brings us seasons where we don't understand why things are going on the way the are.  These can be seasons of wrought with darkness, anger, pain and suffering. Does it mean that God is with us in the one and absent from the other? Often the moment makes us feel that this is true. That's often the problems with feelings.  They are naturally subjective.  By subjective they are 'true' in the moment, but not 'true' after the fact.  This is one of the primary reasons that we can not trust them and should not l...
2 comments
Read more

God's Justice

Most of us can probably talk about a level of injustice that they have personally witnessed.  You may have seen or been the victim of some type of abuse.  You may have seen people mistreated financially.  You may have known of cases where someone close to you was personally attacked by people whose sole purpose seemed to have been the outright destruction of character. They used every lie, slander and manipulation.  Their efforts may have even worked with others, peeling people away from truth. It's easy in those moments to ask the question, "Where was God in all of this?"  In some ways I think that every believer has a picture in their heads of Jesus riding a white steed into the battle and setting right the enemies of truth.  We want God to raise His mighty 'smiter' and do justice on our enemies in a timely and quick fashion that ends the suffering and sleepless nights that we experience.  We want this, yet it can be argued that this is often not...
2 comments
Read more

Blind Spots (Part 1)

Blind Spots (Part 1): By Aaron Peternel Some of my recent reading has forced my thinking into a time of personal reflection. Seasons of looking inside are good things. They are part of what God uses to make us holy; to look more like Jesus. Why do we do the things that we do; specifically why do we continue in unhealthy patterns of behavior? These are patterns that we are taught are wrong, and know are wrong. Many times we fight to control the urges or tendencies and fare well for a while, yet when we are tired, hungry, lonely or or emotionally exhausted, we can often fall. Then the guilt-confession cycle begins and we hate the fact that we failed and have not yet grown beyond it. A simple reason we fall into these patterns is that we choose to say yes to self and no to God. The Scriptures make it clear that we do not have to fall to sin, "13 No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God ...
Post a Comment
Read more