For
years, scientists have wondered how fire ants, whose bodies are denser than
water, can survive floods that should destroy them. How do entire colonies form
themselves into life rafts that can float for weeks? A Los Angeles Times
article explained that engineers from the Georgia Institute of Technology
discovered that tiny hairs on the ants’ bodies trap air bubbles. This enables
thousands of the insects, “which flounder and struggle in the water as
individuals,” to ride out the flood when they cling together.
The New
Testament speaks often of our need to be connected to other followers of Christ
in order to survive and grow spiritually. In Ephesians 4, Paul wrote, “We
should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every
wind of doctrine.” He added, “But, speaking the truth in love, may [we] grow up
in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined
and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective
working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the
edifying of itself in love” (vv.14-16).
Alone, we
sink; but clinging and growing together in God, we can ride out every storm.
(RBC)
