Thought for the Week
It’s important to remind ourselves from time to time just how clueless we are. Think of it this way:
You’re an ant in a big city. Your life centers around the Trail of Frozen Soil (sidewalk). Along one border are the Square Mountains (skyscrapers) which reach into infinity, blocking out the Blue Beyond. Along its other border is the perilous Canyon of Death (street) filled with giant Blurring Beasts (cars) that move so quickly they’re barely visible; many of your clan have been crushed beneath their violent whirling feet.
Even if you steer clear of the Canyon of Death, you have to contend with the Moving Trees (humans), massive, rootless shrubs that dash along the Trail of Frozen Soil on twin stalks! It’s a perilous world. The only safe place is the Queendom (a city planter), where there are tunnels and scent trails, where aphids are farmed and larvae are loved. Although even it is occasionally deluged by sticky yellow waterfalls from passing Hairy-Tailed Monsters (dogs)!
Some say this all there is, that there is nothing beyond the Square Mountains, no beautiful Blue Beyond, and certainly no Ant Creator. The great ant scientists of the day hold to the Pupal Explosion Theory in which…
As ludicrous as the above sounds, it’s probably closer to an accurate view of Reality than the one we humans have of the universe. For eons, we thought everything was made of tiny billiard balls called atoms. This, we concluded, was why the world was solid, the reason we could walk upon the Earth rather than fall through it. But then it was discovered that even atoms were veritable football fields of nothingness occupied by a few infinitesimally small particles of somethingness. And now experiments in quantum physics have revealed that even those particles have no real substance, that they are not physically “there.” They’re more akin to an idea than a reality.
But whose idea? John 1:1-3 says that everything came into existence through God’s word, his logos (the Greek term for an idea that creates a reality), and that that logos is inseparable from its creator. So, we just need to ask God, right? Not so simple. As the great theologian Adam Clarke put it, “God is indescribable in his essence, known fully only to himself, because an infinite mind can only be fully comprehended by itself.”
In other words, God may get it, but we’re still clueless ants on the sidewalk, and nothing can change that, unless… What if the Ant Creator loved the ants so much he decided to reach out to them by becoming one himself?
Some ants believe he did just that.
I am so so thankful for HIS love and grace every day…that our Creator DID come to earth as one of us so we can know Him, be redeemed by Him and know the magnitude of His love! 🙌🏻✝️♥️😊 Thank you, Mitch… Great imagery! 🤩
Amen, Dori.
Love this! Don’t forget the cracks in the sidewalk though … safe passageways for the ants through all the turmoil of the world for the followers of the Way. ✝️
Aha!
🥰 Ant works well enough, for sure! I’ve often thought of us as puppies (in comparison to God the Alpha). Ants or puppies, we have little idea of just how kind and patient He is.
Awesome scene!
Thanks, Robert!
And there’s this guy on the radio hawking the idea to gift someone their name for a star and have it “permanently published and registered” in the International Star Registry. I guess they forgot that Someone has already named them (Psalm 147:4).
I swear I was just thinking about these same concepts last night! Here in this post you have given us your thoughts and reasoning, Mitch, which is indeed a part of you, but only a flat, limited projection of all that you really are. And as small as one of your ideas is to the magnitude of you, so the entire person of Jesus Christ is to the magnitude of God.
In all this universe you could not find the ENTIRE measure of who God is, because all this universe is but one idea within the mind of God!
Yes!
Clueless, yes indeed.
From one clueless ant to another – but still we go on trying to figure it all out.
Being jostled from side to side scrambling for answers to our questions, and exploring all sorts of other paths, through the ups and downs of life and through the tragedies and successes that come our way. Striving for that something else, that something more.
Maybe that’s why He encourages us to ‘be still and know that He is God’.
Blessings to you and yours
Thanks, you too, Perry.
Beautifully penned
Thank you, Vanya.
A very thought-provoking perspective – I loved the quote by Adam Clarke. I don’t particularly like being clueless but I like the search for meaning or purpose that stems from being clueless is an interesting journey by itself.
That’s just what the Trisolarans think of us, too!
Praise the Ant Maker for making himself known! No doubt I’ve said it here before, but I can’t imagine life without him. On my own, I would have made a royal mess of things, I’m sure.
Ditto, Nancy!