“The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Sam 16:7)
I was thinking about how we must all look like ants to God. Millions and millions of ants. If you were God, and you were looking down on the multitude of ants, would you laugh at their egotistical hi-jinks?
I imagine some of the ants might be on an ego trip. Maybe some of the female ants might try and stand out in the crowd. They might wear lots of perfume, so they would smell a little better than the rest of the ants. Perhaps they would wear high heels, or a bright red shade of lipstick. Oh, and what if they wore big, dangly earrings? Surely that would set them apart from the competition. Big, diamond studded hoop earrings that would sparkle in the breeze they’d make when they flipped their sleek long hair behind their ears just so.
And of course the male ants would have their own macho ness to prove. I mean, what could possibly look cooler than an ant behind the wheel of a shiny black Lamborghini? Ah, rev up the engine, flash those pearly white teeth (do ants have teeth?) and you’re good to go. And it wouldn’t hurt to fan a few green backs while you’re at it. The picture of success for any hard working ant…a car, money, and oh, don’t forget the sunglasses!
When God looks down from heaven at any given moment, He is sure to take in a show while He’s here, of all the ant antics going on. He’ll see all the macho ants cruising the highways, and the rare beauties standing in high heels on the street corners. Even the younger ants need to display their identities – tattoos of skulls and snakes on their arms, their fuzzy ant hair dyed purple and standing at attention, cigarettes hanging out of the corner of their mouths, or maybe a chain hanging off their belt loops.
Just like these ants living in futility, desperate for the world to notice them, are we. Haven’t we been programmed to pay more attention to the good looking ants? The ants with the hippest garb and smoothest looking cars are the ones that captivate us. Why is that? We look at the outward appearances, but not so with God. God looks at our hearts. He doesn’t care if we have acne, or skinny chicken legs, or if we drive a rusty Volkswagen beetle. He looks at our hearts.
See the thing is, when you picture a colony of ants, don’t they all look exactly the same? This need to stand out from the crowd, I think, is what’s behind all the earrings and tattoos. That says, “Look at me! I’m different!” But according to the Bible, what sets us apart to God is our hearts. If God’s eyes were roaming the planet looking for the faithful, none of the makeup or souped up cars would speak to Him, but our hearts would. His eyes would probably stop and rest on the ants with the biggest hearts, the hearts that were set apart from the other ant’s hearts, because they were so full of humbleness and humility and…..love, heads bowed in reverence before Him. “Look at those special ants with the hearts that are glowing,” He would brag. “Look at how beautiful their hearts are!”
