Marching One-by-One

Did you ever see the movie, "A Bug's Life?" If you have kids or grandkids, I'm sure you did. One of my favorite scenes is when the ants are all marching in a row, bringing the food to the big rock for the crickets (they were crickets, right?) to eat. While they are marching, a leaf falls across the path and panic ensues. They have absolutely no clue how to get where they need to go if they don't have a path to follow! Luckily, Flick shows up and guides them along another path they can take to reach their goal. Whew! I was always amazed at the sheer stupidity of the ants for being such blind followers that they would have walked off a cliff if the bug in front of them did it first.

Yesterday I was made keenly aware of how ant-like I can be. To drop off the daughter at school, we drive through a big circular drive in front of the administration building. At the end of the drive, we can turn right or left; both directions lead to a driveway that takes you to a city street. 90% of everyone goes left, though, because that particular exit is the most direct route downtown. The line to get out that way gets long at times, so I turn right. Not the most direct route, but it gets me there with less frustration. Back to yesterday. I drop the girl off and proceed to plan the rest of my day. Before I know it, I have played follow-the-leader, turned left, and am stuck in the infinitely long line to get out of the parking lot. Sheesh. That's what I get for not thinking. I followed others into a mess.

On a spiritual level, this is a really easy trap in which to fall. It is much easier to not think for ourselves and follow people's teaching who seem to know more than us about the Bible and spiritual things. The problem with that is even smart people do dumb things once in awhile. And sometimes people who we think are smart are really diabolically clever and intentionally leading us astray. I have a great deal of respect for my pastors and other leaders in the Christian community, but I hope I would never blindly follow any of them. My standard needs to be God's Word, not the word of any man (or woman).

I know people who consider themselves Christians and ask me questions they should be able to answer for themselves with a small amount of Bible study. They respect me and trust what I tell them, but I could be lying to them. I encourage them to seek out the answers in scripture for themselves, even give them the verses, but they'd rather just follow what I tell them to do and not take the time to know for sure that I'm telling them the Truth.

Such laziness is tempting. Reading and studying scripture takes time and can be confusing. Certain books in the Bible are downright frustrating or scary (Revelations, anyone?). Seeing the Truth with our own eyes, discussing what we are studying with God through our own prayer time and weighing what others are saying on the scales of scripture through own efforts is imperative if we want to follow the correct path; the path set before us by God, not by man.

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. 2 Timothy 2:15

I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. Matthew 10:16