Wisdom From Small Things, Pt. 5

I will be away from the computer this week, so feel free to comment, but I won’t be able to respond until next week.  Thanks for reading and God bless.

There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise: The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer; The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks; The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands; The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings’ palaces.

Proverbs 30:24-28

We have looked at several small, seemingly insignificant creatures in this series and have seen that a creature’s small size does not mean that they are small in wisdom.  The last thing we see is the spider.

“The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings’ palaces.”

Have you ever had one of those days where you work hard all day long, and at the end of the day, something happens and it just destroys everything you worked for?  Well, spiders have one of those days every day.  The spider spends her entire day carefully constructing her web.  Then, some well meaning person comes along and knocks it down.  But the spider doesn’t stop.  It just keeps right on going.

That is a great lesson for us.  No matter what happens to us in life, we need to just keep going.  If we get knocked down, we need to get up, dust ourselves off and just keep going.  The spider does that, and “is in kings’ palaces.”  Not even the army of servants that are found in palaces can keep every spider down.  They just refuse to quit and they just keep coming back.  That should describe us.  We should have that kind of perseverance!  Just keep coming back!

Wisdom From Little Things, Pt. 4

I will be away from the computer this week, so feel free to comment, but I won’t be able to respond until next week.  Thanks for reading and God bless.

There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise: The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer; The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks; The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands; The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings’ palaces.

Proverbs 30:24-28

In our look at this passage, we have seen that even some little and insignificant things have great wisdom.  We look at the hard working, forward looking ants and we looked at the wise conies, who understand that they are weak and helpless and hide in the rocks.  Today, we look at the locust.

The locust is described as having “no king.”  Groups of locusts swarm in different parts of the world.  There can be thousands or even millions of locusts in these swarms and they can do great damage to crops and other vegetation.  Locusts aren’t particularly big or threatening by themselves, but the entire swarm of them is an awesome sight.

There is no leader of all of the locusts, yet “go they forth all of them by bands.”  They have the ability to work together and get things done without having one “king locust” telling everyone what to do.  Do we have that ability?  Can we find what we are supposed to do and just do it?  Or do we have to be begged, prodded, or guilted into doing something?  We can gain wisdom from the locust in that he doesn’t need someone standing over him constantly telling him what to do.  Do we?

Wisdom From Little Things, Pt. 3

I will be away from the computer this week, so feel free to comment, but I won’t be able to respond until next week.  Thanks for reading and God bless.

There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise: The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer; The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks; The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands; The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings’ palaces.

Proverbs 30:24-28

Yesterday, we looked at the first of the little things that are described as being “exceeding wise.”  We looked at the ant and we saw how he works hard and has the wisdom to understand that he will not have the opportunity to work forever.  Today, we will look at little creatures called “conies.”  The Biblical “conie” is likely the rock hyrax of the mountains of Syria and Lebanon.

This creature is, as the Bible describes it, “a feeble folk.”  They kind of look like a fat rabbit with regular sized back legs.  They don’t run too fast, they don’t jump too high, they’re not particularly strong and they don’t have sharp claws or teeth.  They really are rather defenseless.

But they have the wisdom to understand that they are weak and feeble and they “make their houses in the rocks.”  That is great wisdom for us to follow.  We should understand just how weak and feeble we really are.  When we understand that, we will want to make our home in the rock – the Lord Jesus.  David described Him as his “Rock” many times.  When we abide in Him, we are safe – even though we are weak and defenseless.  And we can get all of that wisdom from the little conie!

Wisdom From Little Things, Pt. 2

I will be away from the computer this week, so feel free to comment, but I won’t be able to respond until next week.  Thanks for reading and God bless.

There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise: The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer; The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks; The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands; The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings’ palaces.

Proverbs 30:24-28

In looking at these creatures that are “exceeding wise,” we first come to the ant.  “The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer…”

Ants are not very big or strong.  By their size and weight, they are actually pretty strong, but overall, they are very weak.  In fact, you have probably stepped on an ant walking down the sidewalk and never even noticed it.  They are, in the grand scheme of things, “a people not strong.”

But, despite their lack of strength, they do have the wisdom to “prepare their meat in the summer.”  They have foresight.  They work hard.  In fact, in another chapter of the book of Proverbs, God tells the sluggard (the lazy person) to “go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.”  (Proverbs 6:6)  Ants work hard because they have the wisdom to know that they can not work forever.  There is a limited time for them to do their work and they manage to get it done.

We could learn something from the lowly ant.  We need to work hard at whatever we are doing and we need to understand that we will not have the opportunity to work forever.  If we want to do something, we need to take some wisdom from the ant and work to get it done!

Wisdom From Little Things, Pt. 1

I will be away from the computer this week, so feel free to comment, but I won’t be able to respond until next week.  Thanks for reading and God bless.

There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise: The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer; The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks; The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands; The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings’ palaces.

Proverbs 30:24-28

This passage of Proverbs gives us some wisdom.  The book of Proverbs is known as the “book of wisdom.”  These verses show us some wisdom that can be found with small creatures that we might not think had any wisdom at all.

Verse 24 tells us  that “There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise.”

Every thing listed in this passage is (especially to us) weak and insignificant.  Ants, conies, locusts, and spiders are all weak and feeble creatures.  Other than in some cases being a mild annoyance, they probably don’t even register in our thoughts.

But, despite their small size and relative weakness, all four of these creatures display wisdom.  In fact, the Bible tells us that they are “exceeding wise.”  We can learn a lesson just from that.  We might not be “big” in many ways.  We might live small lives in small places.  We might have seemingly insignificant lives.  But we are not insignificant to God.  We can all do something.  We can all have wisdom and do the things that God wants us to do.  We should never let our perceived weakness and/or insignificance stop us from doing what God wants us to do.  It doesn’t stop ants, conies, locusts or spiders.  It shouldn’t stop us, either!