Good morning Friend,
I trust your weekend went well.
For the next few weeks, we would be gleaning wisdom from some of nature’s finest. All things communicate God’s wisdom in unique and distinct ways. It is really amazing the powerful lessons we stand to glean by merely observing God’s creation.
The wisest man of his generation, King Solomon wrote extensively about some animals and gave special recommendation about 4 of those animals. Each of these animals have their unique strengths which he advised we learn from, but the amazing thing was that before he mentioned each of their strengths, he spoke about their weaknesses.
Proverbs 30:24-28 (KJV)
24 There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise:25 The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer;26 The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks;27 The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands;28 The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings’ palaces.
The first thing to learn from these narrative is that no matter the weakness we are celebrating and making our excuse for mediocrity and low productivity, there is someone out there with similar or even a worse disability and weakness but who refused to make it an excuse and excelled in spite of it, thereby making that weakness inconsequential. Even these insects understand the concept of comparative advantage and use it for survival. There is a reason why King Solomon started with their weakness and not their strength, it’s so we don’t think they are a perfect bunch. Everyone has got weaknesses, seen or unseen, public or private, but we must never on the basis of weakness give ourselves excuses, because in the end, these excuses lead to extinction. If the ants don’t do what they have to do, they will go extinct. God gave them exactly all they need to be able to survive, procreate and multiply but if they put all their strengths in the back burner and zoom in on all their weaknesses, their extinction wouldn’t be God’s fault.
I believe I am speaking to someone out there who has concentrated so much on his weakness, what he does not have, who he does not know, where he was not born… enough of that kind of thinking and let’s pursue purpose knowing that we have been fully and adequately furnished with all we need despite all visible weaknesses.
So, for the next few weeks, we would be learning from all these animals. I hope we can be humble enough to take a stool and sit before a board while The Ant takes the piece of chalk to take us a class on “Surviving the Harshest Economic Conditions Gracefully”.
1. Have a Saving Culture: Many times, when we hear of financial increase and stability, we hear a lot more about giving and sowing and very little about saving. The reason is because overtime, it has been perceived to be a culture for those who are significantly lacking in faith. That is, if you are pro-saving, you must be anti-giving, hence anti-faith. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Saving itself is God ordained, else we wouldn’t find admonitions in the Bible that implore us to go learn from an insect whose only specialty is saving. One would wonder, how Abraham the father of faith was able to conquer a confederate of nations with only 318 servants trained in his house. First you would wonder, why would Abraham, a Livestock Farmer and a Serial Entrepreneur be training 318 servants in military combat and engagements on a regular basis? He wasn’t a soldier, neither was he a military strategist, but he was “saving” personnel for the time of war by adequately training 318 servants that he had when there was no war. There was no news of war at the time he was busy training his servants, Lot was not captured, there was really no visible reason for his “silly” routines, but he was saving for a day when the demand will be made. I thought a man of faith ought not to be preparing for extended seasons of war, economic harshness, or crisis? Well, I thought wrong… Abraham saved up and invested heavily in training the personnel born under his watch, thereby massively developing their human capital and overall skill set. Yes, the God factor was the ultimate factor in his victory, but in the light of Luke 14:28, Abraham couldn’t have faced such a confederate without some militia of some sort.
All you will need in those seasons of harshness and dire need, you already have and possess within your environment right now. If you do not save or improve on those resources now by wise investment of time and resources, it won’t be God’s fault when things go down south, it will be due to a lack of wisdom on your path. Joseph took the largest economy and by extension, the entire world of that era through the harshest economic situation by deploying a simple saving policy that is still been researched into till today. There is no doubt it was beyond the 20% that he was saving that got them through the season of famine, just like we know it wasn’t just all about the 318 servants that fought with Abraham in the slaughter of kings… the God factor is the obvious ultimate factor. But what if they hadn’t prepared adequately and then expect that God will save them without trained servants or without a well-structured saving policy? Let me tell you what would have happened…
The same thing that happened to those foolish virgins who didn’t have some oil saved up in their lamps; disappointment, false hopes and perhaps disaster. Wisdom is indeed profitable to direct and we must pursue wisdom much more than we pursue fame, money and political correctness. As we talk about saving, I think of Noah saving himself and 7 others to procreate a new world order, I think of Mary who saved her womb to be the canal for divine incarnation, I think of David who picked up 5 stones but only spent 1. Saving speaks of reserving, investing, developing, training, rehearsing and improving. Saving isn’t all about money. It cuts across every area of human endeavours… Save your words and train your mouth to only say what really matters per time.
The verse says that the Ants are not strong but they gather in summer so they can survive in winter. I therefore infer, that your present ability to save is not dependent on your financial strength at the moment, it is dependent on your discipline and foresight. Saving doesn’t mean you don’t believe God will provide for you in the future, it simply means you don’t take for granted, the provisions of today. Plan to save up a lot of your resources in the coming year because you will be better off for it in the end.
I do hope you enjoyed the class today with The Ant? He taught great yeah? *Smiles…* The Conies will take us our next class. I personally cannot wait! Have a super abundantly blessed week ahead. I love you.
Yeah, you should share this!