Moses didn’t climb Mount Sinai until he was 80 years old. By anyone’s standards, nothing happens when you are 80! Still, Moses was obedient to climb up Mount Sinai and was given the 10 commandments. That was just the beginning of what God had to say. The 10 guidelines that God gave to Moses for the people; but there were more than 10 commandments or laws that God wanted to give to Moses. The Bible contains over 600 laws. But there were many more laws that never made it into the Bible: gravity, entropy, thermodynamics, cosmic expansion, motion, buoyancy, general relativity, and many more!
But God’s laws were not created simply to make things work. They were created to cause things to prosper, increase, and exceed. Remember, God’s involved!
The sin-broken mindset causes all of us to see God’s laws as imprisoning rules impossible to follow. We just see the limitations – the can’ts – rather than the possibilities – the cans. We see God’s laws as restrictions placed upon our lives rather than principles designed to make our lives work.
But God is looking to give us some light at the end of the tunnel. So in Proverbs 6 He decides to start small; like ant small.
Antylitics
Learning about and working with the various laws that exist is challenging, but the brief passage in Proverbs 6 introduces us to the laws of self-leadership as demonstrated through the tiny insect known as the ant.
Proverbs 6 commands the reader to go and learn from the ant. “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.” Proverbs 6:6
The ant does not have a vision board. It does not attend a productivity seminar. It does not have a five-year strategic plan. Yet, ants are able to accomplish something remarkable because they function according to principles that God built into His creation.
“Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provides her meat in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest.” Proverbs 6:7–8
Compounding & Consistency
The ant understands something that we often fail to understand: small actions, consistently applied, produce results far greater than the individual action itself.
Small does not mean insignificant!
This is where we begin to discover that God’s laws do not operate independently of each other. They work synergistically, having a compounding effect when performed consistently.
The Law of Consistency
The ant keeps doing what it was designed to do.
It gathers.
It carries.
It stores.
It repeats.