Move Now

Categories: Blog Jan 28, 2018

Proverbs 6:6-11:

"Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones. Learn from their ways and become wise! Though they have no prince or governor or ruler to make them work, they labor hard all summer, gathering food for the winter. But you, lazybones, how long will you sleep? When will you wake up? A little extra sleep, a little more slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—then poverty will pounce on you like a bandit; scarcity will attack you like an armed robber."

This is an interesting proverb. While I know it’s depth goes far beyond my understanding, it has given my imagination a great deal to ponder about how we are designed and how we are to live through the seasons we’ve been given. Let’s look at the life of the ant.

Apparently, the ant knows how to be an ant without anyone telling it what to do. It works, or it moves a lot all summer. The ant honors the work template, or the movement template, that was placed inside it’s body and it moves in the summer. But what does the summer represent? I think the summer represents the prime of our youth. The summer represents the time, or the season, that we are meant to be moving and gathering strength. According to this proverb, the summer is the season that prepares us for the winter.

But what is the winter? Well, if the summer is our prime of life, the winter is our golden years.; the season where everything turns cold and white! Or old and grey... In the proverb the ant moves all summer long, doing what ants are designed to do, and then in the winter time, they are provided for. All the labor and movement they gave in the summer provides for them in the winter.

I believe if we take notes from the ant, if we honor our design and we move NOW, in our summer, the way we were meant to move (breathing with our diaphragm, using our heads, engaging in our true gait pattern) we will be well able to live a good life in our “winter”, or our later years. Like the ant, what we do today affects how we will live tomorrow. Life does have it’s seasons. We need to take advantage of our now and move because once our summer has past, winter is coming.

According to the proverb above, if we don’t move and prepare for the winter season, something else is coming too... Being lazy, or sleeping, slumbering and resting (not moving) - they lead to a poverty that pounces on you like a bandit and a scarcity that attacks you like an armed robber. What is the poverty of not moving in our life like we were designed? It is the inability to move, to engage in life and live the way we want. If we don’t move well in our now, we are ensuring our ability not to move well in our golden years. We will be life poor, or movement poor and far less able to experience the riches of life we were intended to have.

But far worse than the poverty of not moving is the scarcity that attacks like an armed robber. There is so much depth here... Scarcity, or “Scare City”, is where many people past the age of 60 live. They live in fear. Fear of falling, fear of injury, fear of getting down on the ground, fear of living... And the armed robbers. What do armed robbers do? They attack - they tie you up, they ransack your things, steal your joy, take your peace, and maybe even kill you. They bind you and keep you from moving. They keep you from living.

If we don’t move now, if we don’t honor our design, we set ourselves up for a harsh winter; a time of frailty, fear, and lack - lack of life. If we do move now, we will be well provided for. Instead of poverty and scarcity, we will live a life of abundance and freedom because we will have a body strong enough to allow us to prosper in our season of winter.

One more thing to note about the ant! The ant works for the whole of the community. What the ant does, his individual role, matters. It affects his whole colony. If he doesn’t work and move in the summer, the whole colony could suffer lack in the winter. What you do matters for the community around you to. If you are strong enough to live a good life late in life, you lift your community. If you are living a life of frailty due to movement poverty you drain your community. The stronger, healthier, happier and more able you are, the the stronger, healthier, happier and
more able we all are.

I understand this may not be the true intent of this proverb, but I have found that truth runs in layers and depth actually does begat breadth. The more we look at something the more we see. The point is, what we do today does set us up for our tomorrow. The life we want to live is actually in the hands of how we live.

We were all meant to live in our winter with abundance. None of us were meant to live in Scare-City. Move today and every day. Be strong and warm in your winter.

****If you haven’t caught this yet, there are seasons of seasons. Until your final winter, you can make “now” your summer.

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