Christian Outdoor Object Lesson 28: The Mighty Ant

Photo Credit: Brennon Garner

Key Verse

“Go to the ant, you sluggard. Consider her ways, and be wise;” Proverbs 6:6 (WEB)

Lesson

King Solomon, the author of Proverbs is said to have been the wisest person who ever lived. Why then, did he advise people to go watch ants in order to become wise? In this verse he is specifically addressing a sluggard, or a lazy person. We can all be lazy at times. So why did he advise us to watch the ants? Well if you have ever watched ants at work then you might understand.

An ant is a very tiny creature. It does not seem very impressive on its own. As anyone who has seen an anthill knows, ants can accomplish astounding feats. What is their secret? Hard work. Ants work tirelessly. This is not to say ants never take a break. You might be surprised to learn that many ants have periods of time in which they are idle, even sunbathing.₁ But when it is time to work, they are all business. When ants wake up in the morning they stretch their legs. This helps prepare them for the days work ahead.

They go about their work with not complaint or thought for themselves. They are wholly committed to the community. Ants achieve amazing things. They have been known to build nests with miles of passages. Some nests require the movement of tons of earth—literally. One of the biggest confirmed ant nests was 26 feet deep and covered 500 square feet of space.₂ That’s the size of a small house!

When a job needs doing, many ants jump to help with the task. As the old saying goes, “many hands make light work.” King Solomon knew that if we watched what tiny, hard working ants could do we would be inspired to be hard workers too. Working hard is much wiser than being lazy. It will help us not to become sluggards.

Questions

Have you ever been impressed by what ants or other insects could do despite their size?

Is it ok for us to be lazy sometimes?

What are some ways we are lazy?

How is hard work wise?

Sources

1 http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,819184,00.html

2 http://www.theincredibleant.com/incredible-ants/the-ant-city

Christian Outdoor Object Lesson 14: Learn A Lesson From The Firefly (Lightning Bug)

Key Text

"Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth." Ecclesiastes 12:1a (WEB)

Lesson

What do you think of when you see a firefly: a warm summer’s eve? sitting on the back porch or by the lake? how calming it is to watch the faint flickering lights? If you have ever had similar thoughts you are not alone. I believe God gave us fireflies for this very reason. If you were to guess how long fireflies live what would you guess: all summer? half the summer?

In fact, adult fireflies live for only a couple of weeks! The fireflies you see at the end of the summer are not the same ones as you see at the beginning. It may not be a big surprise to you that they don’t live very long. Most insects have a short life-span. But the real surprise is how long they live as larvae before the adult stage. How long would you guess they spend as larvae? If you guessed two years you would be right! 

Try to imagine that! If human lives worked that way we would spend about 50 years as children and 18 years as adults! It would be so hard to have to wait that long to be grown up. As our lives are sometimes it seems hard to weight only 18 years or so to be fully grown. When we are teenagers we feel like we cannot wait another month to grow up.

Perhaps God gave us an example in the firefly to remind us youth doesn’t last so long in comparison to adulthood. God could have made us like the firefly, but he didn’t. We need to remember to enjoy our youth. We need to remember to learn as much as we can before we have so much responsibility. We need to learn to enjoy the opportunities youth brings. Everything will happen in the right time.

Most importantly, we need to remember to build a relationship with God in our youth. Even if we are no longer youth, the sooner in our lives we turn to God, the better. As King Solomon pointed out in Ecclesiastes 12:1, we ought to remember to start our lives off with God as young as we can. The firefly spends two years preparing for its short adult life. The more time we spend preparing for God’s purpose in our life by staying close to him the better our relationship with him will be.

Questions

Why is it hard to wait to be grown up sometimes?

Why did God give us childhood?

Do you wish you could have been made an adult and skipped childhood?

Sources

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Firefly


Written by David F. Garner
Photo Credit: Amanjeev via www.flickr.com under a CC 2.0 License.