Ant on the Wall

Perseverance – Persistence in anything undertaken; keeps honour bright.  Patience and perseverance overcome the greatest difficulties.

Hebrews 3:6

But Christ is faithful as the Son in charge of God's house. We are his house if we keep up our courage and our confidence in what we hope for.

The beginning of a new year has the ability to put me on a high, unexplainable to anybody else.  It’s filled with a rush of adrenaline through my veins, with the thoughts of new and exciting challenges and experiences that awaits me.   But, sadly, as they say, anything that goes up must come down…… 

The downer kicks in when I realise, that I don’t always have the tools available to meet those new challenges, and I tend to feel quite overwhelmed in a very short period of time.  What tools am I talking about?  Well, it’s quite basic, and I’m sure a lot of you can relate … knowledge; energy; time; faith and perseverance!  The truth is, I cannot remember when last I actually completed a new task I set to do for myself? When things get tough, I throw in the towel!

An ant was walking across the dining room wall, obviously at an angle only suitable to insects!  The wall is about 4m in width.  To the human being, this might mean two or three steps, but to an ant measuring 1,5mm, it’s quite a few stretches more.  The ant was carrying food in his mouth, TWICE his size, and it was clearly heavy and weighing him down.  He was walking slowly, but continued with a state of grace.  At times it seemed like the food was going to fall and he appeared to be stumbling over his four little feet, but he hang on and kept going.  A few cm’s later he lost track and walked into the picture frame, but recovered and found his way again.  In my mind he was walking with perseverance and faith!!!!

Looking at this little creature, I realised, that from God’s perspective, we’re also like little ants, trying to walk across a 4m wall.   Sometimes our load seems too heavy, and our feet are tired.  We might even hit a “brick wall”…… However, we have something the ant doesn’t …. The knowledge of Heb 3:6 “keep the courage and confidence” and walk in perseverance and faith!

God Bless