God, ants, and me

So, today I was working in a wild area in my yard, unearthing a submerged bird bath top that I want to use somewhere else. I used to try to keep the bird bath where is was, but the racoons kept knocking it off the base. Last year I gave up and left the top in the dirt, and put a pretty reflecting ball on the base.

SO, today I pulled up the top from the dirt and found a very extensive ant colony under it. It was fascinating to watch. The ants scurried around, moving all the pupae to safety, transporting other little white dots out of harms way and into holes and tunnels below the surface. I could see the entire top of the exposted dirt was really the stuff ant hills are made out of. I sat there and watched this for a long time. My oldest dd came out to see what I was looking at, and asked if we could scrape half of the ant colony away, and see what it looked like in the inside. I hesitated, as I had already been tempted to put the bird bath back down and let this little world continue as it was. I felt like God, causing a natural disaster of sorts. So my choice at that time was to worsen the disaster by removing half of the hill so we could see the inside, or let it be. I had already decided it would be silly to leave my bird bath there, as I really wanted to put it elsewhere. However, could I in good conscience cause more destruction to this community? So we just observed from the outside, and let them be.

To wrap up this ant story, I realized what a wierd idea I have about God. As if we are just little ants running around down here, and he lets bad things happen, but then continues the destruction sometimes, and other times, holds back. So if I show the ants mercy, maybe God would do the same to me some day? So I thought, would I become an ant so I could help them, and show them the way? Would I die for those ants? NO WAY, but did I relish the destruction of their home? Absolutely not. Of course, I didn't create those ants out of nothing, and I have not planned eternal happiness for them that they are scurrying around and ignoring. I don't love those ants. And yet I still wanted them to be safe.

Want to know the friut of these musings? I stood there contemplating the frantic ants so long, that when I went in to the house, I was itching from a few of them crawling up my legs, and getting on my back. So much for deep thinking and contemplating God.