Ant University

"The poor in spirit see and are glad—Oh, you God-seekers, take heart!" Psalm 69:32 (The Message)

Imagine that ants had such a thing as an ego. Suppose there were actually great universities where certain ants could prove their intellectual prowess over those who knew only enough to stay worker ants. Or perhaps there are gyms where the buff ants could produce a more “cut” ant body. They could strut their stuff in front of the weaker ants that perhaps had less powerful a bite.

Now, compare that intellectual showmanship to the least intelligent human being. The smartest ant on the planet cannot even compare. The difference is so great that you would have to use two entirely different sets of measurement. If a human’s average IQ is 100, how would we rate the ants? .00001? It is like trying to measure a mile in millimeters.

Or, compare the muscular development of Mr. Ant America with the weakest human. Even a toddler with uncoordinated motor skills can still squash that braggart ant working on his ant glutes.

It is probably obvious where I am going with this. We humans love to compare ourselves with each other. One of my earliest memories is of my parents bragging about my IQ score. (Notice how I slyly made it my parent’s immodesty about my score. So, while we judge my parents for their arrogance, we can still pat me on the back for my brilliance!)

It is a good thing, though, that I had some intellectual ability, because my attempts at shaping a body of iron usually lasted 20 minutes. I don’t mean 20 minutes at a time; I mean 20 minutes out of my entire teen years. Give me a book and I would read for hours, but working with weights got boring, and with little overnight results.

But, for all my reading, and for all the muscle men and women put on through hours of exercise, none of us comes close to the similar attributes of God. What are 20 to 40 points on the IQ scale compared to God’s vast knowledge of the universe He created? What are the extra pounds I can dead-lift compared to the power God exerted in creating the same universe?

No matter our comparative abilities, better or inferior to someone else’s, using God’s measure, the differences are miniscule. One of the comments made by the handful of astronauts who went to the moon is how small our earth seemed once they were well out of its orbit. Perspective can change us, if we allow it too.

But we live within our own universe; we see life with ourselves at the middle. There is no other way to perceive without using our imaginations. Our consciousness permits no other view than the one we personally experience.

So, we must willfully think ourselves out of the middle of the universe. That is part of what proper spirituality is meant to do. When we take time to contemplate how great God is, we see our own life, intellect and strength for as small as they truly are. Though our life is the only one we can personally experience, there is more to life than our own experience. Truth lies beyond my puny experience familiarity. My experience is too narrow, too shallow, and not nearly long enough in time to measure ultimate and eternal truths. They are like whispers that we think we hear when left alone on an mountain evening. We think we hear something, but again are unsure. We believe there is truth beyond our own reach, but what that is, we own only an inkling.

That is why all spirituality must be first a revelatory spirituality. We know God only in shadows. He reveals Himself through Scripture and through His Son, Jesus Christ. Some of His attributes I may have guessed at from the nature of His creation, but others may be the simple boast of my own nature.

To come to know God well, we must become “poor in spirit”. Having acknowledged that my own intellect is far too small to apprehend the eternal; having realized I am too scrawny to arm-wrestle with God Almighty, I take a different view. I call myself, in relationship to His greatness, truly “poor”. Once acknowledging my poverty, something else strikes me to the core, and meditated on, that something makes me glad indeed.

I am a “nothing”. I am less than a speck. I am no more important than the gnats I swat away when going for a walk. Yet, in all my smallness, God in all His vastness care about me! Here I was, touting my own intelligence, afraid of admitting my spiritual poverty. But it was in my poverty that I discovered the great love of Almighty God!

The poor in spirit see this…and they are glad! They no longer hide from God. They no longer act as if their intelligence makes them masters of all things spiritual. No, in their poverty they seek Him out anew, and find the one thing they had sought all along: life!

My IQ is probably a few points less than it was when I was young. I remember so few things easily. My muscle tone has, well, started to melt. It is not fair. I now know what it takes to sculpt a muscular body, but my body doesn’t respond as it did when I was young. I am just another person on the watery planet that knows only a human-size portion of life. But God, in His love, has offered me a Divine-size portion of His mercy.