ANTSY

Bathroom visitors...what were
they hungry for? Toothpaste?

 "Antsy”--the word means “restless, fidgety”--and we were definitely restless and fidgety a few weeks ago when they swarmed into the kitchen. Not two by two, either. Total battleground. We didn't stop to count them but grabbed the spray and poison disks to declare war on these minuscule black critters. It was my fault 😕. I had left on the counter a little ceramic honey dispenser shaped like a bear, with a slot for the serving twirler stick. It wasn't air tight. Or ant tight. What's that saying, “If you build it, they will come”? In our case, it was, “If you leave it out, they will come!” Not just the kitchen, either. They found their way to the bathroom, where I quickly left the poison disk to satisfy their appetites. “Be sure to take some goodies back to your queen,” I told them—not that they heard. As retirees who try to be thrifty, we tend to be do-it-yourself folks. The $70 professional spray is a hunk of money (which rhymes with "honey"). So we decided to do chemical battle and sanitize anything that might have had a scent of "follow me to the golden pot." A few days later, the battle was pretty much over.

I was amused by a recent public television show that featured people (bug scientists) who make a big deal out of ants. They love going to remote places where ants build condos taller than a person. They revel in the organizational abilities of ants—all somehow built into their DNA by our Creator God. No wonder they garnered commendation in Proverbs 30:24-38 with some other animals. “Cronies” (rock badgers) were praised for wise building, locusts for cooperation, and lizards about fearlessness. And ants, praised for their innate sense of preparation: “Ants are creatures of strength, yet they store up their food in the summer” (v. 25). Ants also got proverbial “ink” in chapter 6:

Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores in provisions in summer, and gathers its food at harvest. (vv. 6-7)

That observation is followed by a rebuke to the “sluggard” to get with it! If tiny, seemingly insignificant ants scurry about with this internal work ethic without a boss man nearby—getting ready for the lean feeding times of winter—can we do less when God calls us to excellence in our tasks? Another commentator remarked about how ants carry loads far bigger than they are. I've witnessed that, too—and the lesson for me was 1 Peter 5:7: “Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.” When my daily burdens—concern for others, the daily drudge of life's tasks, health challenges and other things that “weigh on me”--get me down, well, God waits to carry that burden for me.

My scripture reading during this pandemic has repeatedly taken me to verses that I memorized or meditated on in previous times of trials. As they encourage or instruct me again, I find myself saying, “Thanks for the reminder, Lord.” I'm glad I “stored up” that spiritual food for these times when pandemic fears nibble at my faith.

“Look to the ant”?--oh yes. Except when they pollute my honey jar....

Bugged

Talk about an end-of-season party! This was the gathering atop my stove in September. I had supplied the “refreshments” (a disk with ant-yummy poison), so had essentially invited this large number of “guests.” A few weeks later, the early winter frosts came, reducing the number of critters who paid social calls in my kitchen. One day, I told my husband, “I didn’t see a single ant today. Did you?” I’m glad for the winter reprieve, but I know when the weather warms, our uninvited guests (most likely their offspring) will return.

Isn’t that like life? We wonder if things can get any worse, and mercifully, a reprieve comes. Or, we’ll find the strength and grace to get through a difficult situation. That’s the point of one verse in Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth. In my Bible it’s underlined and highlighted in yellow such that it almost glows in the dark. Are you getting the idea that I’ve needed its message more than once? Here it is:

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. (1 Corinthians 10:13 NIV)

For a long time I thought “temptation” implied being lured into the seven cardinal sins, like greed and lust. Then I looked up the Greek word that most Bibles translate “temptation.” It’s peirasmos and its primary meaning is “trials with a beneficial purpose and effect,” divinely permitted or sent. Or as Bible teacher Kay Arthur often says, nothing can come into our lives that is not filtered through the fingers of God’s love. It’s bigger than being faced with obvious sin choices. It’s choosing God’s way when our lives are touched by temptations, difficult circumstances or relationships.

I needed that reminder the other day when faced with a peirasmos in relationships calling for an extra dose of patience and grace. It crawled all over my emotions, like partying ants on a disk of poison. Then God, though my scripture reading and the counsel of friends, helped me through it. Will that difficulty revisit? In this case, probably--but only because God permits it. He knows that each time I get through a periasmos, my character is honed, preparing me for my eventual Home with Him.

“Go to the ant,” says Proverbs 6:6, as part of its warnings against idleness. But in this case, I “go to the ant” for a reminder that no matter the irritation or struggle, God is greater. Pardon the pun, but I don’t need to get “antsy,” knowing He’s in control.

Defense mode

One piece of enduring advice from ancient King Solomon is to go on fox-watch. I don’t mean watching Fox News, nor the whole fox-and-hound thing like British monarchs. Instead, we’re warned, “Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes, that ruin the vineyard, our vineyards that are in bloom” (Song of Solomon 2:15).

For a long time, I thought that verse a bit strange. Then I learned it comes from the realities of farming grapes. In spring, fox and jackals sneak into the vineyards to burrow under the roots of the grapes, undermining the plant root system.

The context is Solomon’s love poem for this little maiden who has the king loopy-in-love with her. The common interpretation is this: don’t let anything undermine your marriage. Like, is the foot of the bed a magnet for his dirty laundry? Trap the complaint fox! Does she have enough shoes to open a store? Trap the gripe fox!

May I be so bold as to offer an alternative to the fox analogy? Drum roll: Bait the ants.

Unwelcomed, a gazillion sugar ants have moved in to taunt us. At first there were just a few, like the 12-man search party Moses sent to check out Canaan. Surely, like the Israelite spies, our ants saw giants (people) roaming around the kitchen. But this was a land of milk and honey. Or at least honey. Dried fruits in bags of trail mix. Friskies left in the cat’s dish. And breakfast cereal, which, even though supposedly oat-healthy, in small print admits to sugar in the manufacturing process. Cheers.

As soon as a few hundred more invaded, I battened down the hatches. Anything with a remote hint of sugar went in a canning jar. Plastic pour bins containing cereal got an extra seal with plastic wrap.

The kitchen started looking like a mine field with those little black disk ant baits. We loaded up on ant antidotes. My husband sprayed, powdered, and spread nuggets of disgusting stuff touted to send ants back to Ant-arctica. (Cue card: laugh.)

Every morning, we thumbed dozens of ants to smudged oblivion on the kitchen counters. The dried fruit armored against attack in canning jars seemed to be holding defense….until the morning my husband decided to go for a handful of his favorite trail mix.

Let’s just say as many ants as people at Chelsea’s wedding reception were having a gala among the nuts and dried fruits. I checked the lid. It was a one-inch turn from “tight.” Advance spies apparently figured out that they could crawl along the screw lines of the jar and enter the forbidden territory. Overnight, they were in full attack.

Well, I just dumped half a canning jar of trail mix into the garbage. It wasn’t worth trying to pick the ants out, no matter how much that stuff costs.
There’s got to be a lesson here, right? I think I found it in some notes I wrote in my Bible next to Solomon’s little-foxes verse. The great Bible teacher H.A. Ironside identified some spiritual foxes as:
*Carelessness
*Neglect of the Bible
*Neglect of prayer
*Neglect of fellowship with people of God
*Vanity, pride, envy, evil thinking, impurity
Each time we engage in one of those negative activities, it may seem a little thing. But like the ants in my kitchen, they’ll multiply until they make life miserable—for you and the ones you love.The defense mode? Each one’s opposite.

So, look to the ant (another Solomon saying, Proverbs 6:6). Better yet, I say, look forward to winter when they fade away for a long winter’s nap!

Look to the ant....

Alone, they weren’t bigger than a hangnail or a thorn in the thumb. But they were even more annoying than those in early spring when hundreds boiled out of cracks in our driveway, then started migrating inside the house. Thanks to ants, I realized I had a spiritual problem.

At first there were just a few that we could whap or wipe away with a wet paper towel in seconds. Then came the morning when they held a wriggling revival in the cat’s food dish (he never was a member of the “Clean Plate Club”), filled the grandstands of the Honey Nut Cheerios box, and started scaling the heights of the trash bin for more delectable discards. Every toaster crumb and ice cream drop came under mass scrutiny.

I shooed the cat outside and sprayed ant poison. Black square ant traps became part of the house décor. And still they came.

One early morning, after letting in our feline night watch guard (for what other reason would he stay outside all night?), my husband crawled back in bed and said, “It wasn’t pretty.” When I got up a little later, it still wasn’t pretty. The kitchen looked like someone had sprinkled coffee grounds all over the floor and cabinets. And this was where I cooked?

Okay, so I had a sanitation problem. But what of the spiritual problem? Sometimes it takes tiny annoyances to help you realize how short your fuse can be. I got snippy at my husband. Whiny to my friends. And, oh so mean, when I came in the kitchen and saw a wiggling line over the floor, up the cabinet side, and into places I’d just cleaned out!

Well, the first frost has come, and yesterday we dared to take the plastic wrap “seal” off the plastic lidded container of cereal. We haven’t seen the enemy for at least a week.

And I went to my Bible.
“Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.” –Proverbs 6:6-8
“Ants are creatures of little strength, yet they store up their food in the summer.”—Proverbs 30:25

Despite being tiny and fragile, they excel in industriousness. They do their jobs without special incentives! They’re fascinating--if you look up “ant” in an encyclopedia, you’ll learn more than you thought possible. And that’s just a start. A Bible dictionary reveals more:

*Ants in the Holy Land place their nests near threshing floors or storage bins for grain. They stay near the food!
*The grain becomes their winter food. A stocked pantry!
*They consort with certain insects (like aphids) that secrete sweet juices they crave, and store their insect-friends’ eggs with their own for future use. I’m not sure what to call this—slavery? Co-dependency? Let your imagination fly!

But a spiritual application? For me, Psalm 19:10 came to mind: that God’s Word is “sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb. By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.”

A regular intake of God’s Word is essential for spiritual survival. In His foreknowledge of difficult events to come, God may impress on us to “feed” upon a certain portion of His Word more diligently in preparation for that time. In my late twenties, I obeyed nudges to memorize large parts of Philippians and Romans 8. A few years later, when my parents died, my heart was fortified to endure a spiritual winter. When my mind was too numb to study scripture, I could still “harvest” the sweetness of His Word—those reminders to rejoice (Philippians) and to know that nothing could separate me from His love (Romans 8:39).

I’m still not fond of ants scurrying all over my kitchen (and even finding my toothbrush in the bathroom!). But I am in awe of their Creator and stand reminded that I, too, need to be industrious in taking in the sweet nectar of Scripture.