I love watching ants work. I also love destroying their work and watching them scramble! I guess you can’t get the little boy out of me!
Have you ever seen ants going on strike? They never have committee meetings that get nothing accomplished. Accept of course in the movies. So what motivates the ants to work together to accomplish a greater goal? God has wired them for their task.
The main point of these verses is that we need to have purpose in our lives. We need to get up and do something, not just sit around like bumps on a log. We need to be busy accomplishing our tasks.
This is not busy in order to avoid something else, busy to get our mind off something. This is busy accomplishing the things we are supposed to be accomplishing. The ant works at storing provision. It doesn’t just run around aimlessly, or even needlessly. It has a purpose, and it sticks to that purpose.
So often we become busy to get our minds off something. We put our kids in every sports activity in order to ensure they don’t get bored, or in trouble. We run ourselves ragged like a cat with its tail on fire. And when we need energy for something really important, we have none. What are we doing to ourselves.
Laziness can be disguised as busyness without purpose. If we are not busy in productive activities, we need to slow down and get back on course.
One of the problems I see in our society is our disability system. People get money for doing nothing when they could be doing something. They might not be able to build skyscrapers, but they could spend time each day reading to elementary school kids. They could help at a soup kitchen. They could help a new mom not feel overwhelmed. There are hundreds of ways that they could “earn” their paycheck. But our system punishes them if they do anything. So they do nothing.
Our politically correct speech says that people are “differently-abled” not disabled. We need to allow them to use their abilities and not punish them for it. Perhaps they can’t earn a full paycheck. At least allow them the dignity of earning some.
We need to guard ourselves against laziness. It only takes a little laziness to get us going down the wrong path.
The Arnold Journey 