Good Morning!

The ants have been busy. They’ve had little resistance from the clay veined soil since we’ve had inches and inches of rain. The moistened ground makes for effortless construction and production is in overdrive. The assembly line of workers productively carting the pebbles of soil to form their mounds that dot the landscape.  Some mounds are larger than a football and they resemble a levee holding the run-off streams at bay.

The ants work hard. Their efforts have easily yielded the results they desire. They thrive when the work is easy but when the work is hard, because of difficult circumstances, their progress still slowly marches forward. No obstacle stops them. They either go around the problem or move to a better location.

“Next time you’re  found, with your chin on the ground,- There’s a lot to be learned, so look around – Just what makes that little old ant – Think he’ll move that rubber tree plant – Anyone knows an ant, can’t – Move a rubber tree plant – But he’s got high hopes, he’s got high hopes – He’s got high apple pie, in the sky hopes – So any time you’re gettin’ low – ‘Stead of lettin’ go – Just remember that ant – Oops, there goes another rubber tree plant”                                                      High Hopes lyrics by Sammy Cahn

Sometimes, we allow hardship to affect our work. Our high hopes are dashed, we experience a little drought of the spirit, we have a relationship that becomes cloudy, or we perceive an impossibly hard clod of dirt that refuses to budge out of our way.

The psalmist wrote these words.

“Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” Psalm 42:5,6

Coming to Jesus with their questions and disappointment, the disciples were trying to make sense out of their failure to heal a demon-possessed boy who was suffering greatly with seizures. Jesus tells them,

“I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, Move from here to there and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew 17:20

Our impossibilities are possible with our apple pie in the sky God. Remember the ant. Though small, these tenacious creatures don’t allow anything, big or small, to stop them from achieving and completing their task. Don’t let that obstacle make you immobile. Press on. Take hold and believe. Our high hopes can rest secure in our Mighty God.

Blessings,

Mimi