Ants and Labor Day II – The Western Thatching Ant

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. – Colossians 3:23-24 NIV

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. – Ephesians 2:10 NKJV

So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom. – Psalm 90:12 NKJV

Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones. Learn from their ways and become wise! Though they have no prince or governor or ruler to make them work, they labor hard all summer, gathering food for the winter. – Proverbs 6:6-8 NLT

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The Bible speaks hundreds of times about the value of work, and often about the wisdom that is gained by it. The above verses about the ant made me smile when I read them, as they get pretty much straight to the point.

In early summer, my wife and I saw this dome-shaped mound of an ant hill near our hiking trail. We’d never seen an ant hill quite like this. Blades of green grass pushed up through the mound, and it was covered in old fir needles. After taking a few pictures and doing some research, we learned that this species of ant is called the Western Thatching Ant.

Climate Control

These ants build their mounds in open areas to expose them to sunlight. The thatch covering for their mound is an assortment of vegetative material, such as the fir needles pictured above. This thatch helps to regulate the climate inside the mound so that the ants can survive a large variance of temperature and weather conditions. These ants are constantly maintaining and adding to the protective thatch over their nest. I read where internal temperature of the mound can be 80⁰ F while there is snow on the ground around the nest.

The longer I live, the more I understand the value of the gift of time. Moses wrote the verse from Psalm 90 that I quoted above – about asking God to help us to make every day count. And Moses lived to be 120 years old!

If you’d like to know how you can have a relationship with the God Who has a specific plan for the good works He designed for you, please see Got God?

Hope you have a great day.