The Ants Alarm

Anyone else know the feeling? You're surrounded. Everywhere you turn, they are claiming new territory. You realize it won't be long before there will be nothing new for them to discover. So, they make themselves at home, and set up camp. Your mind starts to race. Strategies begin to take shape. You at least think to yourself, if you haven't already said it aloud..."they won't take me alive!" There are only a few things that tend to more easily break me out of my pacifist shell...and ANTS are near the top of the list.

Apparently this particular tribe of wandering ants had good VBS teachers, because they seem to be familiar with their Bible stories. I can just envision them cresting the gentle slope between my tile and baseboards as they gaze out over what they want to claim as the 'promised land.' It's like my kitchen is Canaan and at first they just send out a few scouts to get a feel for what they are up against. You know, three or four scurry across the counter. A few more across the floor. They fool you into thinking they may be harmless because after all they are just a few. And then they wait...just long enough for you to assume they are gone. But in an instant, the moment you leave just one measley plate in the sink...the smell of 'milk and honey' invigorates the sleeping beasts and the troops move in.

Now they really are everywhere and I feel the disorientation start to settle in as the 'antsraelites' march round and round my kitchen. Only this is where they begin to get their Bible stories wrong because they are not being silent. They are mocking me. Okay lest you think I've really gone off the deep end, they aren't actually talking to me, but they are mocking me nonetheless. At this point the pacifist in me is really starting to lose the argument. So the other night when I came home late to find the not so hospitable ants with torches and trumpets preparing to take up permanant residence, I concluded that something would have to change...there would be a different end to this ancestral story!

I found my weapons of choice in the valley of walmart and returned to proceed with my own strategic counter-strike. I thought I successfully knocked back their initial defenses and so I decided to go to sleep...albeit now a little more happier of a camper. That is until 6:30am this morning when the smoke alarm started going off....LOUD! I ran into the hallway expecting my kitchen to be in ashen ruins with the ants singing their familiar victory refrain, "the ants go marching 1 by 1 hurrah, hurrah!" But...there was nothing...no smoke...no rubble...no plundered ruins. The alarm had quickly shut off, so I went back to bed. Ten minutes later the alarm sounded again. Back in the hallway...nothing....nada....zilch. Back to bed, this time a little more angry and frustrated than before. Another ten minutes pass and the alarm sounds once again. I make up my mind that this time I'm changing the battery. So I find a new one, grab the step stool, pull out the old battery and replace it with the new one. As I'm re-inserting the alarm cover back into the ceiling...I'm not kidding about this...a few ants come scurrying out of the alarm and head toward the wall! What? Conspiracy! These wiley ants found a way to really get me by rigging the alarm to wake me early from my sleep! If it wasn't before....it's ON now!

Unfortunately for the ants, they are about to realize they are living out the wrong Bible story. Instead of the Antsraelites overtaking the promise land of my kitchen, they are about to get a crash course on the story of Gideon. Put it simply God will place his hand of blessing upon Gideon (played by me) and prove again that God is mighty to save (in this case 1 against "thousands") by destroying the "midiants" once and for all! I like that story...
__________________________________________________

Yes, I know it is silly. But, sometimes it is important to sit back, relax, and enjoy the simple reminders in life that God is still God, he is still in control...even if ants invade every corner of my life!

May God uplift your spirits this week, and restore to you a joy to live for him in all things, big and small.

Mike