Seriously, God...up until 3:00AM fighting ants?
Seriously, God...up until 3:00AM fighting ants?
When ants attack, is this an act of nature or spiritual warfare?
My home was under attack from a legion of ants—big ants, baby ants, some flying variants, and a queen mother lurking. They covered our family room floor, couch, ceilings, and walls—the explosion happening within minutes.
What was our response to this invasion?
Nothing less than nuclear warfare.
With a vacuum crevice tool in hand, my wife began picking off each ant. To the ants, the roar of the vacuum must have been like a helicopter overhead. I went outside and began my bombardment of ant killer insecticide and encased our house foundation and part of the roof I thought they may be coming in through. Proud of my work and knowing this chemical mix was previously tested on a select group of little ant prisoners, I stood my ground outdoors in the dark night while my wife fought indoors. Our initial battle lasted until 3:00AM that day.
Throughout the beginnings of our battle, we were advising my sister of our ordeal, and she let us know she was praying for us. Praying for what I asked? Praying to stop any spiritual attack. Was this spiritual attack I asked her? Wasn’t this nature reacting to extreme heat and looking for a cooler place to hunt? Sure it could be, but it is awfully strange timing considering how crazy the week had been for her and us, a sentiment with which I had to agree.
That week, a friend of ours car broken down, and I drove 35 miles to get them. My sister’s tire blew up, and I changed her tire on the hottest of nights. We had chance encounters with people we weren’t on great terms with which was awkward. I had a general uneasiness that whole week that did not seem to have a specific origin. All of that did make for a strange week.
So could ants be a form of spiritual attack? Many times I feel some people can over spiritualize situations. At church, I remember one time a person had balanced a tv on two chairs and and uneven table, and when it fell that person blamed it as spiritual attack. When I watched those two chairs being stacked on an uneven table, I warned them the balance didn’t look very stable. To me it was gravity and poor planning to blame. On contrary, if we believe in a spiritual realm I am sure there is much more happening in this existence than we know. I recall reading that our eyes and ears only take in a very small amount of what is actually available to hear or see, so even the physical world is largely unperceived.
So what do you do when you are attacked by ants and you aren’t sure what else is going on?
You do everything you can because an ant infested house is a no go.
Before I went to sleep I prayed that we wouldn’t be greeted with a new wider invasion because I am not sure we could psychologically take an entire house full of ants. Praise the Lord, the next morning we were greeted to a motionless family room. The next day activities included more prayer, laying out additional bait inside, and continuing my chemical onslaught outdoors. My wife read that peppermint might be a deterrent, so she pumped the house with peppermint essential oil, and we washed our floors clean to remove any traces of ant casualties or lingering food. By that evening we sat on our couch, said a few more prayers, bound any evil spirits in Jesus’ name, held our sprays and vacuum ready, and waited until night fell. Minus a few stranglers there were no additional battles to fight. The war was over.
Through this entire struggle with nature, I was reminded that I often don’t approach a problem with prayer or any kind of spiritual sensitivity. To resolve a problem, I have so many tools that I can reach for in my experiences, frameworks, and general wisdom which God has given me, but even with those skills don’t I still need the help of the God of the universe? Growing up my parents would always say a prayer before driving, and I often thought it a little strange. Just drive safely if they were worried I thought. They would say it wasn’t for them, but to protect us from everyone else driving. That I could understand. You can’t control them. Can we really control ourselves completely?
It never hurts me to pray for even the “smallest” of things and paying attention a little more to the signs of life and the divine just makes me more aware and humble before Christ. As you can guess my worldview is pretty far from “chasing miraculous signs,” but there is another extreme, and I feel more balance is in store. We all stand before God, like Job did in the book of Job, with so little that we know and understand.
With a wild week in the books, I resolve to say a prayer the next time I get in my car because trusting God and acknowledging Christ’s providence and hand isn’t going to make me a lazy driving, but I will appreciate that always need God’s covering.
Where is a “little thing” in life where you can pray more and acknowledge his providence?