INSTINCT AND CHOICE
The ranger told us about
the tarantula migration. At this time of year, every year, the males come out
of their burrows and walk across the desert seeking the females. Some travel
over 50 miles to find her. It’s instinct. As humans, we have the instinct to
seek God, our creator. The difference between us and animals is that we can go
against our god-created nature. Unlike animals, we have the free will to deny
instinct—we have the choice to say no, and crawl right back into our holes.
It’s in our nature to seek
truth, a truth that is deeper and farther reaching than even our conscious
minds are aware of sometimes. It’s just a part of who we really are. Some people
distract themselves and busy themselves so they never have to confront this
essential self-awareness. Others know they’re seeking but just don’t know who
or what.
That was the case with the
Apostle Paul when he went to Athens. He went to where the people gathered to
discuss philosophies beliefs and “addressed them as follows: ‘Men of Athens, I
notice that you are very religious in every way, for as I was walking along I saw your many shrines. And one
of your altars had this inscription on it: ‘To an Unknown God.’ This God, whom
you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about’” (Acts
17:22-23).
The Greeks were such seekers, they didn’t want to miss out on
any deity, so they even put up a shrine to the one they might have missed! Hilarious,
but it goes right along with our human nature to seek truth. When Paul came
along he had the opportunity to tell them about the God they didn’t know, and the
significance of His son Jesus Christ.
In Jeremiah
29: 12-14, our God gives just a few of the great benefits of searching Him out:
“I will hear and heed
you. Then you will seek Me, inquire for, and require Me [as a vital necessity]
and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found
by you, says the Lord, and I will release you from captivity.”
But like the tarantula, our journey across the
desert has its obstacles and that’s why we need to seek the Lord every day and
in every situation. It’s so easy to fall into some kind of mental, emotional or
even physical captivity if we dare to think we can really do fine on our own.
It’s pretty simple really. God created us, Jesus knows everything about us and
we are just not that smart!
For the tarantula, there are the huge rocks to
go over, the snakes and predatory birds to avoid, and the cholla cactus that
literally throws out barbed spines if you even get close to it. You don’t even
have to touch it for it to become an enemy. And then there’s the infamous
tarantula hawk, a large orange-winged wasp about two inches long.
The tarantula hawk is mostly passive at every
other time of the year, eating only vegetation, but when the tarantulas
migrate, the female wasp becomes a vicious one.
She flashes those beautiful orange wings and
injects her paralyzing venom into the spider, then pulls the paralyzed victim
(about eight times her weight) into a hole below the sandy desert floor. The
spider may or may not awake out of the paralysis as it becomes the first meal
of the baby wasps whose eggs were injected into its hairy flesh.
The point: seeking has its dangers. The journey
has unseen obstacles and hardships. But the tarantulas don’t just stop. They
carry on—it’s instinct. A few get stung by the wasp and won’t make it, but most
of the seekers find what they’re looking for. It’s the same with us.
God’s Word says, and Jesus confirms: “Ask, and it will be given to
you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be
opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the
one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened” (Matt.
7:7-8).
Sometimes
we read a scripture and/or say a scripture to ourselves and think it should
work and then we get disappointed and discouraged when we don’t get results.
That’s because we keep it in our own realm. We say it to ourselves and it doesn’t
really go where it needs to go. We read and say, “Ask.” But we don’t actually DO
the asking.
Instead
of just reading and saying the scripture to ourselves, we need to speak
directly to our God, and/or say it to our Lord Jesus: “Lord, your Word says ‘ask,’
so I
AM ASKING You now. I am SEEKING You now.” Bend your
ear to me now and answer me. I am listening and expecting. Thanks for being
here with me now. Amen.”
There are
many examples in the gospels of those who sought after Jesus. I love the story
of Zacchaeus, who was a short man and climbed up into a tree to be able to see
Jesus, unobstructed by the crowd. And what did Jesus do? Luke 19:5 tells us:
“When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and
said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house
today.” The Carolyn translation would go something like this: “Hey, buddy, come on down. I want to spend some personal time with
you, so let’s go to your house.”
The male
tarantula’s instinct is to seek a mate once a year. Our instinct by nature is
to seek our Lord and God daily. Let’s follow that instinct and go with the plan
our creator has set before us, one day at a time.
Love,
Carolyn
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