Go to the Ant! Proverbs 6:6-11

Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its preovisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep?

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest --  and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man.

Proverbs 6:6-11

     Have you ever read Where the Red Fern Grows? It’s a beautiful book about a boy in the Ozarks and his two Coon Hounds. Actually it’s about their love for each other and determination to finish a hunt because of their love for each other. There is a passage toward the beginning of the book when the boy, Billy, is absolutely determined to finish cutting down the biggest tree in the forest simply because his dogs had treed their first coon in that tree and Billy had promised them that if they treed a coon, he would do the rest. After two days of chopping with an axe, tears, blisters, and refusing help from his Papa, the tree finally came down with a crash. After a day and half of chopping when Billy was ready to quit, his grandpa came to help him build a scarecrow so he could go home and get some rest and finish the job the next day. The conversation that the Billy’s grandpa had with him in the buggy on the way to the house that night is well worth having again today with our children.

“You know Billy,” he said, “about this tree-chopping of yours, I think it’s all right. IN fact, I think it would be a good thing if all young boys had to cut down a big tree like that once in their life. It does something for them. It gives them determination and will power. That’s a good thing for a man to have. It goes a long way in his life. The American people have a lot of it. They have proved that, all down through history, but they could do with a lot more of it.”
I couldn’t see this determination and will power that Grandpa was talking about very clearly. All I could see was a big sycamore tree, a lot of chopping, and the hide of a ringtail coon that I was determined to have.

     What do you think? Do we still have the kind of determination and will power that grandpa claimed the American people have always had? I think it is well worth our time to consider our own lives and the lives of our children to come to that answer…especially considering the fact that Solomon thought the dangers of laziness and self-centered idleness was such a dangerous thing for his son that he called him a “sluggard” to get his attention and told him to spend some time watching the ants!

     There is no doubt that God intends for us to rest. However, I am fairly confident in today’s culture of entertainment, luxury, and technology that has made everything so easy and instant gratification an entitlement, I am somehow far past the rest intended by God for a Sabbath, a rejuvenation, and a quieting of my soul and often times, enter into the dangerous area of “a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest.” And yet somehow with all of that rest in the form of sleeping, hobbies, entertainment, sports, and everything…I still haven’t taken the time for a Sabbath.

     Solomon warns of physical poverty and I think we would all do well to be very intentional about instilling good work ethic in ourselves and in our children for those reasons. But oh, how tragic if we succeed in that area and still fail to instill in families a determination to know God and his righteousness. I think the Proverb still holds true in the spiritual arena as well. And if we understand the true nature of what it means to follow God—that all of life is to be done for the glory of God (Col. 3:17)—then we will understand that even if we are chopping down a giant sycamore tree for the sake of honoring a promise made to a couple of hounds, we are mandated by the love and grace of God to give it our absolute best! Poverty and scarcity are scary enough when we are talking about physical needs. How tragic would it be to wake up one day only to realize that spiritually we or our children are impoverished and living in scarcity!?

      So how about it? Will we honor our word and finish the jobs we’ve committed to? (I’m thinking of a few projects that have been on my “honey do” list for far too long!) Will we hold our children accountable to finishing the things they have committed to? Will we teach them to be as diligent in their work, studies of scripture, and pursuit of righteousness as we teach them to be with their sports? Will we bail them out of a jam because we can’t stand to see them fail or will we challenge, assist and encourage them to finish what they started because we believe they are capable of it and because that is what a man/woman of God does?

After all, sometimes chopping trees is good for a person. “It goes a long way in his life.”