Guided thoughts, 12 "Those terrible ants"

Our pastures are wonderful.

Apparently the soil is just perfect.

Lovely.

Enter the fire ants.

Yes, fire ants. They have moved in, invaded, settled, and whatever else you want to call it. They make mounds that start out low and innocent, and grow to huge proportions. And mean? You haven't seen mean until you meet fire ants!  They are tiny, and fast, and they will swarm up and around and over whatever has aroused them -- biting the entire time.

Oh, and those bites sure do hurt! They seem to be imbued with an incredibly potent "something" that hurts far worse than the bites of their larger cousins. I won't trouble you with the chemical stuff, just nod your head and we'll move on . . .

We've been trying to eradicate these little rascals. We walk the pastures carefully, searching for the "beginner" mounds -- the established ones are easy to find, because they can rise many inches above the mown grass. We sprinkle the bait onto the mound, and we get their attention....don't want to make 'em real mad, just rouse them out of the nest to discover the tasty bait. Then they can get all excited and take it down into the nest and show off their skills at providing for the clan. The bait will kill them after they eat it, and one bite given to the queen will result in the whole nest dying.

Some people would think I'm heartless. I'm not. I'm willing for them to live.
Just somewhere besides our pasture, where we walk, watch owls, turkey, and deer, and hit the occasional golf ball. (Grin)

We find that sometimes one application just doesn't quite do it. We will find a few hold-outs stubbornly living and nurturing a queen in one corner of a fairly dead nest. Or we'll find a whole new nest, because some of the survivors have moved a few feet away and started over.

Isn't this just like sin in a believer's life?
With the Spirit's help, we search for the things in our lives that are undesirable. The sins that "so easily beset us" and that can separate us from our God.

Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper,    but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy. (Proverbs 28:13)

We try to root them out: we ask His forgiveness and the blood of Christ is sprinkled on our sins and they are gone.

“I, even I, am he who blots out    your transgressions, for my own sake,
    and remembers your sins no more. (Isaiah 43:25)

But are they gone?
Do they seem to keep hanging on? Troubling us?

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Romans 7:15,18-19)

We have to try again (and again) to get rid of them?
Hang in there, Christian, there is hope!

From the Lord comes deliverance.    May your blessing be on your people. (Psalm 3:8)

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us,who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:“For your sake we face death all day long;    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31-39)