Who are the Wise Among Us?

“There are four things which are little on the earth but they are exceedingly wise.”
Prov. 30:24

1> “The ants are a people not strong yet they prepare their food in the summer.”

Ants are a fascinating insect that have been much studied and admired for their wisdom in laying up a store of food when it is plentiful, but there is an aspect of their activity that has only recently been understood.
Ants, known for their advanced communication networks, send out their scouts to find food. When a food source is found the scouts come back and teach the other worker ants how to find it.
Interestingly, once they know where the food is, the ants always walk in a straight line – taking the shortest route to get the food and come back to the ant hill. Until very recently science was stumped as to how the ants did this, but it has been found that ants have a built in ant ‘pedometer’ and they actually count their steps.
Researchers proved their theory by taking a number of ants and making them tiny stilts, and others they shortened their legs. At first the ants either over shot their target or stopped too soon, depending on the altered length of their legs. But then they quickly compensated for the change in stride length and adjusted the number of steps they needed to take to get to the food.
How wise is that?

2> "The rock badgers are a feeble fold, yet they make their homes in the crags."

The rock badger is a slow moving little creature making him vulnerable to attack by predators.
Therefore, he makes his home in among rocks and crags - an inhospitable environment that discourages other animals from even searching for him. If he is threatened he easily slips in between the crevices of the rocks and safely disappears.
His most feared enemy is the eagle, but the badger is sharp-eyed and can see the eagle soaring above him. He is equipped with a special covering over his eyes that allows him to look directly into the sun without damage to his eyes. Ever keeping an upward eye, the badger is quick to see the enemy coming, sounds the alarm, and the rocky terrain hides the badgers from becoming the eagle’s dinner.
A wise choice of living quarters!

3. "The locusts have no king, yet they all advance in ranks."

Nothing can stop the advance of a locust army.
On their way to the ‘desert locust plague’ of 1988, the locusts had to cross the Atlantic, flying 5,000 km. in ten days.
Scientists were puzzled as to how they had achieved this because locust swarms come down to rest at night… and they certainly can’t swim.
So how did they do it?
They landed on ships if they were conveniently located but they also landed on the water. The first locusts that touched down on the ocean, drowned but then their dead bodies became a raft that allowed the other locusts to land on it and rest until morning.
No one has been able to stop the locusts from marching in ranks across their fields devouring everything in their path. Only in the last few decades with the discovery of pesticides has man gained some control over these little insects.
Their wisdom is built-in; they need no king to tell them what to do.

4> "The spider skilfully grasps with its hands. And it is in king’ palaces."

The spider! Truly it finds its way into every house… even kings’ palaces!
And how wonderfully skilful a weaver it is. Have you not watched and admired the spider? How quickly he quides the spun thread between his hands and remembering the pattern perfectly creates the beautiful web, so intriquately and precisely designed, the distance between threads displaying measured accuracy.
The spider uses different silk thread for different purposes - the sticky kind for catching prey, the non-sticky stronger kind for securing the spooks of the wheel and a different kind for their cocoon.
The spider is careful not to be caught in his own web; hence the non-sticky silk thread is used in among the other for him to walk over his own web safely.
He weaves several different designs, the most common is the wheel-shaped web, but he also makes sheet webs, and an air tight, bell-shaped one that is entirely under water. Trap door spiders add a chute to their web so that their ‘dinner’ comes down the chute right into their ‘plate’!!
Who taught the spider to spin with such wisdom?

These insect creatures have brains a tiny fraction the size of ours and yet their industriousness and their applied wisdom win our admiration.
It took man 6000 years to conceive of a computer, and only recently figured out how to save data on a tiny chip. God already knew how ages ago when He created the tiny creatures of His earth. The ‘software’ that makes the ant, the rock badger, the locust and the spider tick… is divinely uploaded into their tiny brains… and the program has not malfunctioned in 6000 years!! Not even a glitch! Man cannot compete!!
Our God is an awesome God..... In every detail of His creation.

If God has given such wisdom to these insignificant insects, and pointed them out to us as examples, will God not surely also be faithful to fulfill James 1:5 to those who ask?
“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach and it WILL be given to him.”