Does Your Well Have Ants?

Mike Hosey, An Elder

My house is usually watered by a well and a pump.  That system pulls refreshing, cool, aquifer water from about 90 feet below my property and deposits it into a giant, ugly, blue, upright tank sitting in my south lawn.  The tank becomes pressurized as it fills with water, and that pressure then pushes the water into my house, where I use it for bathing, drinking, cooking, cleaning -- and frankly -- a lot of things that are absolutely essential for a healthy life.

Perhaps you noticed that I said I usually get my water from that system.  That’s because sometimes the system fails.  Every year or so, I get a bunch of ants around that well, and for some reason, they crawl into the pressure switch.  That’s a switch that turns on when the pressure in the tank gets too low to push water into the house, and it turns off when that pressure is just right, so that the tank always has the right amount of life giving water in it.  It’s automatic -- which makes life a lot better.  But when those ants get into that switch, their bodies get caught between the switch’s metal contacts, so electricity stops flowing to the pump, and the pump stops pulling water into the tank, and I no longer get water in my house.  As you might imagine, this becomes a problem pretty fast! In fact, it was from this repeated experience that I learned really well how much water means to the operation of my family.   I seriously like to bathe (especially in Florida) every day. I don’t want to wallow in the filth that I often pick up just by being in the world.  So Thank goodness those ants aren’t automatic like the pump!

But they’re not automatic because I now diligently make my yard poisonous to their presence!

Sometimes, though, we get A.N.T.S. in our life.  That is, we get Automatic Negative Thinking Syndrome.  When we choose to focus on the negatives in our situations (and it IS a choice) rather than see the positives, our negative focus can eventually become automatic.  At that point, you’ve got ants in your spiritual well and pump.  The flow (Psalm 1:3) to your spiritual house dries to a trickle, and you no longer have water for bathing, cooking, cleaning – or frankly – a lot of things essential for a healthy life!

This is why it is important to discipline our minds to see the good that God has put in our lives, and in the world around us (Philippians 4:6-8).  Doing this makes your mind and spirit poisonous to A.N.T.S.