A Sweet Life
Eat honey, my son, for it is good; honey from the comb is sweet to your taste. Proverbs 24:13 (NIV)
Devotions about bees still turn my knees to rubber. I don’t scream or run away, but my body (knees especially) physically react to those who claim the title of beekeeper—and she isn’t even wearing hand protection! Louis Lotz (All God’s Creatures) shares her experiences of collecting honey and the sweet life.
*****
Nature shudders just about now, as if suddenly realizing that there is so much more to do before winter and so little time. Summers are long and lazy, but now there is a blur of activity. Snakes are giving birth in their warm dens beneath the compost pile. Birds are sailing south. Honeybees prepare for winter by packing their hives with honey, some of which I go now to collect. I am the landlord, and I come to collect the rent. I wade out into the meadow where I keep my hives, a shimmering sea of grasses and goldenrod.
The first hive gets a few puffs of smoke from the smoker, and then I pop the top. The worker bees beneath the lid instinctively raise the abdomens and point their stingers at me, like medieval pikemen. The first squadron of defenders takes flight, searching for the intruder, for my honeybees are nature’s great anomalies, bearing both a painful sting and a wonderful sweetness. Bees need sixty to seventy pounds of honey to make it through a Michigan winter, but there is still plenty for me. I don’t need a lot; I need just enough. I won’t be back until spring.
My life is capable of both stinging and sweetness, mischief, and mercy. Sometimes I live in harmony with the world, using only what I need to get by; other days I find myself being greedy, collecting more than I need, more than I can use, while other go without. On a good day I am the good Samaritan, but other days I am the priest who passes by on the other side. I try to live a good and faithful life, and now and then I actually succeed, yet my sins are many. But I rejoice in knowing that I am heaven bound, not because I am good, but because God is. What a sweet life!
Not a single creature on this earth has more or less right to be here. Anthony Douglas Williams
Heavenly Father, thank You for reminding us that life can be sweeter. Help us to call out to You when we get stung by others. Teach us to be more consistent in our actions and less impulsive. AMEN.