I tremble in fear of you; I stand in awe of your regulations… My eyes strain to see your rescue, to see the truth of your promise fulfilled. (Psalm 119:120,123)
Read: Daniel 5:1-31, 2 Peter 2:1-22, Psalm 119:113-128, Proverbs 28:19-20
Relate: Please bear with me while I walk through one of those free association moments. While I was reading Psalm 119:120, my memory drifted back to the fear and confusion one particular ant must have had of me. Drift back to the moment of that ant’s fear way back when I was a youth pastor in Webster, NY. I was up in the youth room praying when I noticed a really big ant walking by. Right next to that ant was a thumb tack. I did what any guy would do and introduced that thumbtack to the ant. I missed. Well, I almost missed. Somehow I had managed the impossible and had speared one leg of that poor ant to the ground. The little guy tried to run away but all it could do was run in circles while one leg remained firmly stuck. I took an unreasonable interest in the ant’s plight, but I did not help it. I simply watched it walk and walk in circles completely unable to get free by its own power.
Now let s drift away from that scene on the youth room’s floor and into one of the greatest movies of the last decade. Early on in the movie, Avengers, Dr Fury meets Loki for the very first time. Trying for peace, Fury says, “We have no quarrel with your people.” Loki looks at the one eyed man with contempt before responding, “An ant has no quarrel with the boot.” Later on in the movie, that first conversation would be revisited:
Then, of course, there is this moment near the end of the movie:
React: Just like Loki, we are in a prison. Just like the ant, we have been caught in a trap that we cannot possibly escape under our own power. We blame God, we blame the devil, we blame others, but really the prison is one of our own making. Again like that ant, we are walking around hopelessly in circles. Like Loki we have no hope of escape without outside help. I left that ant there that morning more than ten years ago. I went down to my office and was working for hours before going back up to check on it at lunchtime. It was still trapped. It was still walking around in circles. In a rare act of pity, I set it free.
The greatness of God compared to our power is far more than that of an ant and a boot, but He has taken an unreasonable interest in us. He has taken an interest in me. He has seen me walking around in circles, trapped, with no hope of escape. He was then willingly pierced so that I can go free. He has seen me imprisoned by my own sins and addictions. He then entered into that prison to take my place. But He didn’t stay there. He stole the keys, kicked down the gates, and now I have the opportunity to break out with him. Even though I tremble in the fear of a great and powerful God, I also strain to see his rescue. That rescue is a promise that He started to fulfill at the cross and will complete at His soon coming return.
Respond:
God, I am so thankful for all that You have done for me. I am so thankful for the unreasonable interest You took in one who, by every comparison or perspective, is oh so far beneath You. I am thankful that You entered my world, bore my pain, suffered my pnishment, and prchased my freedom. Even as Thanksgiving has passed, I can only begin to count the many many ways I am grateful that You are my God.
THE RIVER WALK 
You so remind me of a brief moment in my own journey. I was young, just beginning my studies, and my novice master had assigned some “free time meditation” each day, walking in the open learning to “see God in all things”. If scripture came, good. If insight came, good. If Joy, or Sadness, self-knowledge, worship… whatever, good.
I sat on a sunny great rock, and near my feet saw a sandy anthill, with its hundreds of little workers methodically bulldozing their way to expansion. I pondered them for a good few moments, as the strangest awareness crept over me. I could destroy them. With one, or several, solid stamps of my boot I could destroy them and all their work. Along with this awareness, there grew a great sense of power and potency (not feelings a novice experiences much of the time), and with that a tremendous temptation to do just that… destroy this work, kill these ants.
But the task of that moment, I remembered, was to “see God in all things”. So I backed away from the feeling and the temptation. I considered the question of “why” would I do such a thing? I was not horrified, as much as curious. I saw the obvious correlation between the “god-likeness” of my power to destroy, and their apparent weakness… and God’s relationship with us.
I asked God if I were seeing rightly, and I sensed that there was truth here. I realized that I considered this act simply because I COULD. So often, when I prayed, I would be incredibly specific… as though instructing God on exactly how He should remedy a particular situation, how He should bless (and how He should not), how He should heal (and when), and so on and so on. But somehow, in this moment with these ants, I realized what a terrible god I would make. How prone to error, to mood, to impulse.
God wrote on my heart that day just a single, simple, lesson… that I was ever so grateful and joyful that He Alone is God, and that I am not and need not be. He is simply so much more capable than I.
And I walked away, carefully treading to leave the busy ants in peace.
Perhaps your ant was related to mine.
Grace to you — LM
Yep, I’ve had the same thoughts. And, like you, I realize that I would make a horrible god.
I think it is safe to say we all would do a horrible job taking on God’s role. At least, I certainly would.
Loved the analogy:)
Another superb post…Powerful analogy…Yes! Learnt long ago to ‘see God in all things’. 🙂
We can learn much from studying ants according to King Solomon’s wisdom. The question I have is how do you know a good ant from an evil ant? Then, is an ant that invades your space a good ant or an evil ant? Some ants bite and others do not? What do you do with the ants that bite when they invade your space? How do you control the non threatening ant from eating on your table?
I would be interested in what you answer, for it is the same problem we have to deal with all over the world today, except it is humans not ants we seem to be emulating.
Regards and goodwill blogging. .
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