Trail Pheromone

"Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest"- Proverbs 6:6-8 (NIV).

My husband has capped our new porch with stone and cement, then sealed it to protect against the environment. It looks formidable; why then, does he still find little places where a procession of ants are getting through? A can of ant spray sits outside; a permanent porch ornament until the ants are driven away. Even in this hostile terrain the ants march out to do their daily foraging to harvest food. God gave ants a chemical they secrete called "trail pheromone." Wherever they go they leave a trail for other ants to follow that leads from the nest to the food. Each subsequent ant reinforces the trail as they go out and back to the nest with the harvest. Unlike the ant, Christians have a Commander, but like the ant we, too, have a harvest to bring in. God gave His children a similar "trail pheromone" to leave, a scent for others to follow when we wade out into the fields. "But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ's triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of Him everywhere" (2 Corinthians 2:14). Each trip we leave a trail to follow; reinforced by the next Christian, we continue to march out in procession gathering in the harvest.