I thought it would be fun to spend time with my teammate, Malory, to write a collaboration blog. It was a blast and we left the experience wondering why we hadn’t done this sooner! Shout out to Mal for a unique and creative partner in crime.
So picture this. You move into this cute little house in Zambia, Africa and you’re stoked for the month that lays ahead. You have a kitchen, a couple bedrooms, a bathroom (with hot water, sometimes, when the water is working) and a beautiful view from your back porch. What could go wrong?
I’ll tell you what. Ant infestation.
Mal’s Story:
I wake up and what’s that saying? God made this glorious day? Yeah. So half asleep, I stumble out of my top bunk to the kitchen half asleep, because the first thing on my mind (aside from God, of course) is coffee! So I wait for my plunger coffee to sit. I grab my bible and journal and plop on the couch. Shortly after my plop on the couch, Brittany walked in, accompanied me and took notice to the thousands of ants! It wasn’t until then that I realized I had been walking on these ants upon my awakening journey to the kitchen for my coffee. Needless to say, I was a bit disgusted that I probably had some ants crushed under my feetsies.
My Story:
It was a morning like any other. The Lord wakes me up, I read Jesus Calling, I go brush my teeth, I grab all my devotional necessities, and join my good pal Mal on the couch. Right now I’m going through the book of John in scripture. I think that was the day I was reading John 6. Ya know, Jesus feeds the 500, Jesus walks on water, we are reminded that he gives eternal life. The good stuff. It was while I was sitting on the living room chair, that I felt a little tickle on my toe. I did what anyone would do, I shook it off (just like T-Swift would recommend). I went about my business and shortly after, I felt yet another tickle. I took a whack at it with my right hand. I carried on, but the tickle returned. This time it felt like something was crawling on me. I looked down, and to my dismay, I see a black wave of ants. I exchanged looks with Mal, the realization hit us a mere milliseconds apart.
Why does this even matter? Because like any other Racer, we have become keen to finding biblical symbolism in any life challenge. Ya wanna know where we’re comin from? So first, our little house. It has concrete floors covered by a decadent paper tiled floor covering that hides the original concrete. It’s fancy at first glance. Then you move a coffee table and it rips. Low and behold, an army of ants made their debut where a moderate-sized rip was compromised. So by putting two and two together, one may eventually come to the conclusion that the ants have colonies beneath the fake tile décor.
Ready for the biblical symbolism part? So, everyday we would sweep away the ants. At first, there wasn’t that many, sweeping was no big deal. More and more started to show up so we reverted to a bug killing spray/Glade. When that didn’t solve the issue, we called for backup (our hosts). They gave us some powder to sprinkle on the floor. Guess what? It worked! But only at first…(here come scripture) what needed to happen was that we needed to uncover the veil and dig deep into the root of things. So that’s just what we did.
There came a time when our only option left was to lift up the fancy paper tile décor and completely sweep out the ants and sprinkle the powder over the naked concrete. All we were doing up until then was covering the problem that turned out to only work temporarily. It didn’t solve anything at the end of the day (actually, week).
Are you following? Recap: ants = sin, fancy fake paper tile floor = ways we cover the deep stuff, sweeping/spraying/sprinkling = things we do to fix things on our own.
“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” –James 5:16
“The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” –Romans 13:12
“For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” –John 20-21
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” –Matthew 5:14-16
Point is this; you can’t do it alone. We need to shed light on the things that we are trying to hide and allow others to help sweep away the sin through prayer. We need to shine light in the darkest of places, only then will it be possible to eliminate the root of the problem completely. Sometimes it can be scary to reveal what’s underneath because you don’t know how bad it might be or what to expect. We didn’t know how many ants were gonna be under the floor and we honestly would have done fine never knowing. But, it would have continued to haunt us while we were here. Facing the problem may seem like an unimaginable task but the good news is the task isn’t even yours; it belongs to Jesus. All we have to do is surrender it to him and he will do all of the cleaning up leaving you with something better than before!
So if you have ants in yo pants, take the pants off. Haha, but for real, don’t allow sin to rule you from the depths of darkness. Shed light, take it to God and allow others in.
