Missionary Encounters Ants
Steven Cook tells of reading an account of a missionary from India: "The Lord must have desired to teach me something through the "ants" because He allowed me to come in contact with enough of them! The encyclopedia says there are more ants than any other insect. It seems that most of them must be in India! He goes on to say… "everywhere he looked there were ants" - Ants in the plastic bag of bread, though it was securely tied. Ants in a jar of jam, though its lid was screwed on it. Ants in the margarine, swimming in the liquid goo. Ants in a tin box of cookies, though its lid was tightly fastened. Ants…Ants…Ants everywhere all day long!! By evening I was thoroughly annoyed. I had eaten ants in my breakfast, lunch, and supper. Hoping to get a good night’s sleep, I moved my cot into the open, away from the tent and the trees. As I lay down with a sigh of exhaustion, I was soon jolted from my rest by the fiery bites of more ants!!! The Prov. 6:6 states, "Go to the ANT…consider her ways and be wise." A aunt only lives 45-60 days but just go outside after a rain and look and see what they have accomplish in such a short amount of time.
The ant reminds us that life is a gift from God and we are to accomplish things with this gift. In other words, life is God’s gift to us but what we do with this life is our gift to God. That is your legacy. Now to maximize this gift which I been have given, it’s absolutely critical that I shift from looking at myself as a consumer to a creator. A creator is always producing more than they consume so that the investment of their life extends for God’s purposes far beyond this circle of themselves. In comparison, a consumer consumes all that comes into their hands. So a creator is making every decision with a future focus. A consumer on the other hand is always making a decision on the here and now and that often leads to paying for the past.
From a sermon by Tim Smith, Envisioning A Legacy, 10/19/2009