PSALM 75 - Ah, Silly Little Ant

At the set time I appoint, I will judge with equity.  When the earth totters, and all its inhabitants, it is I who keep steady its pillars.  I say to the boastful, “Do not boast,” and to the wicked, “Do not lift up your horn; do not lift up your horn on high, or speak with a haughty neck.”     God  (Verses 2-5)

Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.   Proverbs 16:18

 

The little ant is going about his business of traveling the road from the grassy area of my lawn toward my house where he and his tiny buddies want to explore the wonders of my kitchen cabinets, foraging them for easy food bits and perhaps even a chocolate dessert.  He doesn’t know I’m watching him until his little ant feet get right up to the door.  My shoe is in the way of his forward progress, so he endeavors to step around it in his determination to get what he wants.  I move.  My foot once again in the ant’s way.  The little guy doubles back.  I move again.  The tiny insect is now mad.  For a moment he stops to look at my Nike staring him down.  The head of the tiny ant rotates upward to see the ultimate goal of climbing the mountain that is me.  I’m guessing he counted some cost, but it didn’t take the ant long to scramble over the tip of my shoe and begin trekking up my leg.  Many obstacles slowed the progress.  Body hair, clothing.  It took the determined little guy hours to reach my ear.  Up on his hind legs at the rim of my earlobe the insignificant insect yelled at the top of his voice:  “Move!  You’re in my way!”

I laughed then.  With my finger and thumb I could, of course, squish the ant into nonexistence. Stupid little thing thinks he can tell me what to do and where to be.  That ant’s garish pride will be his undoing because there’s no way in the world I’m going to do what an insect of his size and intellect tells me to do.  Kinda wish he hadn’t been stupid enough to think he could order me around because we all know what I did.  Scratched my ear and pulled out a dead ant.

We ants have a problem.  It’s telling God what to do, where to be and how to think.  When He could squish us in a moment.  Light years of wisdom lie between us and our Creator.  He sees everything at once – past, present and future.  It is He Who keeps the entire universe in balance. So isn’t it obvious why our pride insults Him?  How ridiculous it is for us to have his ear only to order the Lord of all to “Move!”  This ant believes he has a better grasp of the situation than the One who could destroy it in a moment.

I think what is confusing to some is they are allowed to get away with, for now, flipping God off as they go about doing what they want.  Such heinous things go on all over the world on a daily basis that were I God, I don’t think I could stomach it.  How does He watch us make laws that affirm as good what He has called sin?  Shouldn’t God annihilate us individually for our own preened pride as we go about breaking His heart as well as His commandments?  No one is good….no, not one. No one understands.  No one seeks for God.  All have turned aside.  Together they have become worthless.  No one does good.  Not even one. (Romans 3)

Because only God is good.  Knowing Him – loving Him – is the only possible way we can achieve honor.  For the little ant to become like the human, understand how one thinks, know what motivates one, to love and respect the distance between itself and the higher being.  To pay homage to that difference in deference to the will of the human over the will of the insect.  I would, personally, protect an ant who loved me like that.  An ant that crawled the distance to my ear to proclaim: “You are much greater than I.  Please have mercy on me.”

Tinier, so much more obviously infinitesimal, are we before God than are ants to us, it is reasonable for Him to expect our respect for His prowess, prescience, wisdom and power.  But we tend to flip our hair back, raise our chins and proclaim our own greatness in a manner that insults His very throne.  Our only remedy from the squishing we deserve is grace.  All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the salvation that is in Jesus Christ. (Romans 3)

So, fellow ant, rejoice with me today in His mercies, renewed every morning.  Dance around your particular ant hill exclaiming the riches of God’s grace toward you.  For not only does He not destroy those who are His, He dances with them.