by Allen Frederick

Created on: May 16, 2010   Last Updated: May 19, 2010

A Parable of Uninvited Guests

Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! proverbs 6:6

One ant is fine, two ants are okay as well but when they show up by the thousands then well it is no longer fine. Ants have their purpose in life and I am sure that God has great plans for the tiny ant, but as for me and my house I prefer to live an ant free existence.

I have nothing against these fine little black creatures crawling around the earth in large numbers burrowing into the ground heck, I even had an ant farm when I was a kid.

I loved looking at the intricate underground pathways these critters would burrow into the sand but never did I contemplate for one minute allowing those critters out of that glass menagerie and into my room to build their home there.

Outside is a great place for ants to play and roam around and furrow for food but my house is not an ant farm and these critters are not welcomed indoors.

That being said I need to recount a story of a friend of mine who had moved into a new apartment out in the country. Country living can be relaxing at times but it also brings with it new challenges and obstacles to overcome.

On one particular occasion he recounted to me the story of finding ants running across his living room floor. He would try to kill one after the other but there would always be another one to kill later.

If it were me I would have been crazy with the thought of these little beings running all over the place and crawling along my bed while I tried to sleep and doing God only knows what those things do when no one is looking. Anyway after a few days of this ant parade night after night he decided to introduce these ants to MR RAID.

Mr Raid, as advertised, rooted out these pesky critters and littered the living room floor with not one, not two but several hundred perhaps even a thousand ant corpses lying there in the morning sun awaiting removal by Mr Hoover. Those tiny terrorists were rooted out and destroyed and life returned to normal for my friend.

This silly little story points to a larger lesson one can learn if we  take time to contemplate such things. Our society at large is made up of many people groups and cultures. Some make good neighbors while others, like the ants, can cause themselves to quickly become unwelcome.

If we respect and honor our neighbors, and do not invade their homes uninvited then we can all pretty much live in peace, one with the other. It is at those times when we make ourselves an uninvited guest in someone else's house that we risk a visit from the exterminator.

We are then no longer a peaceful neighbor but a pesky intruder. We have gone where we are not welcomed.

Now in the defense of our little ant buddies they do not have the intellect to know that their place is outside and not inside but those of us of  the human persuasion sure do know the limits of respectful behavior.

If we choose to cross that line of respectful living then we deserve and should expect a not welcomed sign. Any society that permits being overrun by tiny terrors will end up being over run by a multitude of terrors. Their peaceful existence will end and be replaced by chaos.

Just like those little ant terrorists invaded my friends happy home and made his living quarters far less inhabitable so does allowing terrorists to continue to work inside a country. Perhaps it is time to call for MR RAID and end the overrun of these tiny terrorists.

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