Marjory proudly carried the huge crumb she had found underneath the Hendersons’ picnic table. It looked to be the best crumb she had found all year. Wouldn’t the ant colony be impressed with this large crumb? As she moved slowly across the patio towards the colony, a grasshopper landed in front of her out of nowhere. She started to think about how nice it would be to be able to jump like that…instead of having short, little legs. As she glanced upwards to follow the grasshopper’s next jump, she saw a beautiful Monarch on a golden flower. She pondered what it would be like to be the orange and black butterfly, extracting delicious nectar from lovely flowers…instead of carrying heavy, human leftovers to the ant colony. Marjory started to get depressed. She started to stumble under the weight of the immense crumb. What had been a blessing started to seem like a burden. As Marjory took her eyes off her purpose—gathering food and feeding her fellow ants—she became more and more discontent in her duty. The crumb began to feel 10 times heavier than it had when she had first picked it up. As Marjory’s thoughts continued on the path of “what ifs” and “if onlys”, her pace slowed.
Suddenly, Marjory felt her world grow dark. A shadow had blocked out the sun and covered her whole world. Something…something really big…was behind her…or beside her…or…Marjory stopped walking…and just waited.
A foot stretched down out of the sky towards Marjory. A large, sneakered foot. Marjory started to scream. So this was how she would die. She closed her eyes and braced herself for the worst. As the foot touched the ground, she felt a rumble in the ground beneath her…but she wasn’t dead. She peeked through her half-closed eyes…the foot had come to within a millimeter or two of where she stood with her crumb.
As Marjory’s breathing started to slow back down to normal, she couldn’t help but be thankful that she was alive. She was alive! Suddenly, her lot in life didn’t seem so bad, after all.
As Marjory became focused once again on her purpose, she once again carried her crumb proudly. Her load felt manageable, and even a blessing, as she realized that she was alive and able to do the job she was designed to do. She continued on her journey across the patio with a new sense of purpose.
Ahhh…silly story, is it not? Ants do not have feelings and they probably have no concept of what the other creatures in their world are doing. But, in my imaginary world, I can imagine a worker ant being a little disgruntled about having to do all of that work, while it appears that other creatures are given much more fun and interesting things to do.
Can you see the similarity? I am not going to write a whole lot more, but I will say this: When we remove our eyes from the purpose God has given us—whether it be to raise a family or to fix a machine or sing in front of millions—and place it on those who we think have it so much better, we lose focus. Let’s keep it all in perspective and remember how good we have it. Wherever we are and whatever we are called to do…right here…right now.