Core beliefs

The Parable of the Ants
An Illustration of Religion vs Relationship with God
by Mac Stinson

Imagine walking out in your yard when you step in a fire ant bed. Before you realize it, your leg is covered with these little fire-ants. What do you do? You start slapping them off and stomping them into the ground, of course! You want to kill them all!!!

But wait, you hear the angel on your right shoulder saying “Have mercy on the little creatures.” For a moment, you hesitate. Maybe the angel is right. After all they are just doing what comes naturally.

But by then the ants have started to bite the angel too. Now even the angel wants them dead! So the stomping continues.

Now, suppose these ants weren't ordinary ants. They were very smart. They are aware of your presence and believe that if they could somehow communicate with you, then you will stop killing them.

But what could they do to get your attention? They started out by praying for you to show mercy ...”Oh mighty man, thou who kickest the top from thy servants' anthill. Have mercy upon us O man, and stompeth not thy servants into the ground from wince we came.”

But you don't hear them. You don't hear a single word.
And you don't speak the King James English anymore.

So they pray some more. Then they meditate and pray some more.

But you don't hear them. Not a single word. Why? Because they are ANTS, for goodness sakes!

Next, they take up a collection and give you a tenth of everything they own. You don't need and certainly don't want anything they might have.

The stomping continues. Some of these ants were members of the Methodist Church. And being good Methodist ants, what do you suppose they did? Of course, after the collection, they had a Fellowship Supper with Dinner on the Ground (They were ants remember.)

When that didn't work they called their District SuperintendANT . What should we do?, they asked. He told them that all this was because they hadn't paid their apportionmANTS . And so they gave more to their ConferANTS.

BUT YOU STILL DON'T HEAR THEM!! Why?!? BECAUSE THEY ARE JUST ANTS!!!

Now let's change some of the facts of this story. Let's suppose that you had genetically engineering with certain characteristics that reflect some of your character. You might say that you created these ants in your image.

Before the ants were made, you had prepared your yard for them. You had planted a garden for them for food. You had dug out an irrigation ditch for water. Then you carefully built them an ant-bed and placed it at just the right spot in your yard for optimal access to these resources.

Then using some of the dirt from the ant-bed itself, you built your first ant. You were so proud of him. You named him Adam-Ant. You spent hours with Adam-Ant, walking with him all over that ant-bed.

You loved those little ants. You had plans for these ants . You never meant for them to stay in that ant-bed forever. You had created them for fellowship and friendship with YOU. But there's a catch, for such a relationship to exist, the ants had to want a relationship with you too. You could have made them so that they didn't have a choice. But then if that's what you wanted, you would have made a computer chip that was programmed to respond to you.

So you gave them free-will, the ability to choose to love you...or to reject you. If you take away their free-will, you won't be rejected, BUT you won't have a relationship (you will have SLAVES) If you give them free-will, .you may have a RELATIONSHIP, BUT you might be REJECTED.

So you gave them free-will, but now, how do you tell your ants about this relationship you want with them? How do you show them what you had planned for them? At first, you would spent quality time walking and talking with Adam-Ant. Later, you rescued them from a colony of hostile Pharaoh Ants. Then you gave them a set of instructions called The TEN CommandmANTS. You spoke through selected special messengers called the ProphANTS. You gave them a book called the Old TestamANTS.

But they still did not understand you. What else could you do? There's only one thing left for you to do. If you were ever going to reach them, you had to become an ant yourself. That way, you could teach them and show them what you had planned for them. Then they would understand. Then they would listen. Then they would hear. And that's exactly what you did. You came to their colony as the son of a Carpenter Ant.