Service

Proverbs 6:6 Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. 

My new home has a garden that has been neglected for some time. The mint has overtaken it. Before we moved I cleared out some of it so I could bring some perennials from my old garden but I’ve been working on the house and not the garden since we’ve moved.

Yesterday a friend brought me some Black-eyed Susans for my new garden. As I was clearing a place for them among the mint I put on my glasses to check out a little plant that was growing underneath, trying to identify it. Besides that plant I found three ants working hard to carry the body of a large, dead bug uphill. I realized that my weeding was creating an earthquake effect for them.

They worked and worked, moving like they were in fast-forward motion to get that bug wherever they were going. One would lose his grip and the others would take up a new position so they wouldn’t drop it. Another would fall and the other two would reposition to catch the weight before it fell.

Another ant of the same species (they had a copper tone to them) came by with a small load all his own. He whipped by them at lightning speed and was at the top of the hill in a heartbeat. The three I was watching never even gave him a glance. They kept trying to get their own load up that hill.

I wanted to be an ant at that moment. Many of us pay way too much attention to what other people are doing. That fast ant had a much smaller load. He seemed fast and efficient only in comparing speed. The huge load of my three hard-working ants was clearly a much bigger job. Those ants never took their eyes off the work they had to do.

We are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works. Ephesians 2:10. Some of us have been given small loads as a part of our good works. Some are given huge loads. It’s all in God’s purposes for that individual and for the larger community of believers.

Why is it that we take our eyes off what we have to do and look enviously at someone else’s? Why do we stop what we’ve been called to do wishing we had the smaller load or maybe even wishing we had the help of the three ants with the larger load? It seems that for many of us it doesn’t matter whether it’s a big job or a little job, a fast or slow route, a safe or a risky work. What the other guy has is what we want. Not those ants.

1 Corinthians 12:4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

God has given me a work to do in service to Him and His family, the Church. He has given you and every other Christian a different act of service but it is He who enables each one of us through the power of His Spirit to do what He calls us to. Oh, how much more peace and satisfaction would we experience if we would each accept and find joy in the work He chooses for us and appreciate the efforts of others?

Pride that we have the bigger work or envy of the other’s work are both sin in God’s sight. Whether our loads seem large and burdensome or smaller and easy to move through quickly, God will bless our obedience to do what He calls us to do willingly, even wholeheartedly.

I Peter 4:10, As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.