Are you like an Ant?
Have you ever noticed how excited we get to plant our garden in the spring? Oh, we rush to the store and pick out the annual flowers in pretty colours, each year picking a fresh new colour scheme for the garden! We race home with our new plants, budding with hope, and put them in the garden and arrange them "just so". We water them and watch with careful diligence to see that they grow.
From the first week we plant, we watch for weeds, and deadheads and protect our purchase, with the knowledge that our diligence over this little garden WILL grow and it WILL produce the results we hope for...a beautiful garden to enjoy.
Here is a scripture from the book of Proverbs that speaks of diligence.
Proverbs 6:6-11
New International Version (NIV)
6 Go to the ant, you sluggard;
consider its ways and be wise!
7 It has no commander,
no overseer or ruler,
8 yet it stores its provisions in summer
and gathers its food at harvest.
consider its ways and be wise!
7 It has no commander,
no overseer or ruler,
8 yet it stores its provisions in summer
and gathers its food at harvest.
9 How long will you lie there, you sluggard?
When will you get up from your sleep?
10 A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest —
11 and poverty will come on you like a thief
and scarcity like an armed man.
When will you get up from your sleep?
10 A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest —
11 and poverty will come on you like a thief
and scarcity like an armed man.
This scripture can have many, many applications in our life, but today we are going to focus on spiritual diligence. The ant knows it has to gather and store if it will eat. (Maybe the ant likes to organize and categorize its little harvest....LOL!)
We KNOW that if we want our garden to grow and be healthy we must water, prune, weed, and tend to it with diligence.
Our spirits need regular nourishment, just like a garden. No food, no growth. The ant does not wait for someone or someting else to feed it. The ant is steady and faithful, one day at a time.
We can nourish our own spirit daily, just like the ant. If you are not diligent to nourish your spirit, a spiritual famine and drought will come upon you like a theif and you will feel a spiritual poverty that drains you in every area of your life.
Feed your spirit today. Read your Bible, pray. Sing a song. Do the things that ground you in your faith. When you are centred with the Lord, you have an inner peace that helps you face all the things that life throws at you.
Be like the ant....be diligent to nourish your spirit every day!
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