by Marsha Iddings
Proverbs 6:6 ¶ Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:
Recently I sent my daughter up to the garden to do some weeding. She came back excited about what she had seen. She had pulled up a clump of weeds and underneath was an ant colony nursery. As she watched, the ants quickly began carrying the eggs down a tunnel deeper underground. There were hundreds of eggs, but it only took them five minutes or less to accomplish the task of carrying them all away to safety. I have had the same experience of being able to witness a scene like this. Sarah was amazed at how organized they were and so was I when I got to see it.
Isn't it amazing how God provides the tiniest insect to teach us about diligence, and organization? He says to consider her ways and be wise. They knew exactly what to do when their colony was invaded and their eggs were threatened. We didn't find them running around in a panic. They saw what needed to be done and immediately set about to do it. Further on in the Proverb He says the ant "provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest".
On the other hand, there is the cowbird. In my Birds & Blooms Magazine a reader sent a picture of a song sparrow feeding a baby bird that was much larger than itself and wondered she what was going on. As it turns out, the baby bird was a cowbird. Cowbird parents are irresponsible parents. They don't want the bother of raising a brood. So mother cowbird will flush a smaller mother bird out of her nest right after she had laid her eggs and then swoop in and quickly lay her own eggs in the nest of the other bird. Then she flies off and never looks back. Sometimes the host bird is able to recognize the eggs that don't belong to her and can push them out of the nest. Sometimes she doesn't recognize the eggs as not being her's and will hatch them and raise the baby cowbird as her own. In the case of the Yellow Warbler, she can tell the egg is not her's but she is too small to push it out. So she will build more nesting material over the top of it so it won't be incubated. Some Yellow Warbler nests have been sighted that have as many as six stories...new nesting material laid over cowbird eggs that kept getting laid in her nest. Unlike the ants who diligently look after their eggs and young, the cowbird is an irresponsible, lazy parent that causes trouble for other birds by taking advantage of them.
God gives us so many lessons through His creation. Just in two of His creatures, we have lessons of responsibility, organization and diligence. What a wonderful God we have!
Dear Father, You are faithful to teach us many lessons through creation if we look for them. Help us to learn what You want us to learn through these things. In Jesus' Name, Amen.
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