GO TO THE ANT, YOU SLUGGARD!

PART IV

  

 ⁶Go to the ant, you sluggard, consider its ways and be wise! ⁷It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, ⁸yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.”  Ants are amazing little creatures. They alert others to danger, they lead other’s to food. They work cooperatively without a commander or ruler. They ensure survival of their species. They prepare for the winter and the unexpected. 

I watched a video about ants in the Amazon that created a lifeboat during the flood season to protect their queen and larvae. The entire colony joins together (like the skydivers link arms in the sky)and floats across the water while keeping the queen and larvae on top of their raft and out of the water until they reach an area of dry land.

 Underneath, the 'raft' are more opportunities for destruction (fish) that slowly pick away at the ants. Without a plan this could potentially lead to disaster. But they have a plan: it is to keep moving the queen and the larvae to dry areas on the ‘raft’.  I don’t know about you but I want to be wise like the ant. I want to tell everyone about the money strategies I am learning and how credit is not necessary for survival. I want to lead others to the One who is the source of all my needs. I want to prepare for the emergent and non-emergent needs. It will be hard; it will be tough; it will require determination, but it can be done.  I want to safeguard my children from the ‘snares’ of this world and I want them to know it a lot sooner than I did. It’s never too late; but sooner is always better than later. 
Now ask yourself, “9How long will you lie there, you sluggard?” How long do you plan to be idle or inactive about your circumstances? Do you enjoy being the borrower and not the lender? Do you want to reverse this? “When will you get up from your sleep?” When will you stop living thoughtlessly? When will you consider the true cost of borrowed money? Can you imagine what you could do if you did not owe Visa, MasterCard, GMAC, your mortgage company? Take a few minutes and imagine all the possibilities you could experience in your life if you were debt free. How much could you give to fund the food pantry? How cool would it be to pay a single parents electric bill for a year without them knowing you did it? How much easier would it be to give to the building fund at church if you didn’t have to worry about paying your mortgage? The possibilities are endless. But you have to see yourself actually doing it in order to run with gazelle intensity to get there.

                “10A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest and ¹¹poverty will come on you like an armed man.” A little carelessness and negligence along with lack of desire to make a change in your circumstances will cause you to have an insufficient supply of your wants and needs. It will feel as if you were robbed at gunpoint. I have been careless in my use of credit cards, I will admit, and negligent in being disciplined not to use them. I have not always had the desire to get out of debt. I believed, as much of society has, that debt was necessary to improve your credit score. As Dave points out, those in marketing have done an excellent job in making us believe we even need a credit score. You don’t need a credit score if you are paying cash. (That is a totally new concept for me.)And if you have never been robbed, all I can say is ‘you don’t want to be’! It’s frightening, you’re not sure if you are going to survive, it’s something you will never forget and will forever change the way you see circumstances that led you to being robbed. It’s something you never want to experience again. I don’t know about you, but I would love to experience the freedom of being debt-free and the feeling of not being held at gunpoint as a result of debt.

 As the creditors are slowly paid off, I will keep you updated. I'm pretty excited about knocking them off one-by-one.