We’ve all been told, move often that we would like to admit to, that we need to stop and smell the roses. We live in a hurry-up society where we are pressed to get the task at hand finished as quickly as possible so that we can get to the next task at hand. As a result, we hardly get to appreciate what we are doing or what we have done. It’s a loss for us and for those who would benefit from our taking our time and not being in such a hurry.
Sometimes, however, stopping to smell the roses is only for a starter. The other day my wife and I went for a long walk. It was a very hot and humid day and we may have overdone the distance. We stopped at a local convenience store, bought something cold to drink and then sat on the bench next to our church’s outside columbarium. I was beat and could only hang my head in exhaustion. (I deserved the agony as it was self-inflicted!)
As my head hung low, I spotted this tiny little creature, no more than a 16th of an inch, if that long, scurrying all over the place. I suppose it was looking for food, but who knows. For some reason, and it was not because we were in a churchyard, I thought about God the Creator. It’s easy to think about the beauty of the created order when looking closely at a rose or watching the sun set on the beach: God in a thousand places!
But in that ant at that moment I truly saw God at work. The beauty of creation in a part of creation that I often wish never existed. I can do without pesky ants and stinging mosquitoes and nasty gnats and all of their ilk. They’re pests and not things of beauty and certainly not a reason to thank God for their creation. But at that moment on that bench, dripping with sweat, that’s all I could do.
Yes, God boggles my mind. Whenever I try to get a grip on God, God slips out of my hands. And I cannot ever hope to understand God and know I never will in this life and probably not in the life to come. But that ant said everything I need to know about God. And what is that? It is simply to stand, or in this case sit, in awe of the fact that every creature and everything and everyone is God’s personal creation. And for that, I should be very thankful.
Why God creates ants is none of my business. Why God created me is none of my business. What is important is that that ant and this Bill go about our businesses as God created us to do and not ask why. As we do, we will discover why God created us. Will that ant discover its purpose in life? Not my business. It’s its. But what I discovered, or certainly, maybe finally, realized, is that God has a purpose for everything God creates, even that ant – and especially me.
I wonder if God was behind our taking that walk when any sane person would have stayed inside so that I was forced to sit on that bench and then contemplate about my life as seen through that little ant. Probably so. Such is God!
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