Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Bee-Careful !

Hot. Summer. Weather. Heat Advisory. Whew! It's hot here in the South right now! And a lot of Southerners like to go barefoot in this kind of weather. I want to give you a word of caution: DON'T! That is, if you have white clover blooming in your yard right now! My granddaughter and my daughter-in-law have both stepped on honey bees in the past week in their back yard. The bees just love this clover! And they're just doing their job...gathering nector to make their honey for the winter. If you interfere with them by stepping on them with your bare foot though, they'll defend themselves with their stinger!


A couple of weeks ago when we were out visiting the church bus route on a Saturday morning, I was looking at the yard of the house we had just stopped at. It was needing mowing and was just totally covered by white clover blooms. A light dusting of snow could hardly have been any whiter. I was thinking how beautiful and soft looking it was when the hum of bees....plural...many bees...caught my ear. Then I adjusted my vision and focused not on the clover blooms and yard as a whole but on just one or two blooms up close by me. A bee on almost every one! As I moved my eyes from one section of clover to another I was amazed at the number of bees at work.

A thought came to me then. Sometimes people look at things just "generally" and all they see is the beauty of the thing. They don't see anything harmful or bad in it. But it may be that Satan has a hidden agenda that they can't see. Maybe it's something that down the road will come back to haunt them if they indulge in it. Satan will make us look at the big picture and see how beautiful the flowers are. He will get us so comfortable in this new environment that we will "kick off our shoes" and relax....not realizing that there are poisonous bees on each bloom that will sting us the minute we put our bare foot on the ground.


We need protection on our feet from the honey bees just the same as we need protection on our lives from the sting of Satan. "And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace:" (Ephesians 6: 15) We must keep our eyes open and be able to recognize the bait that Satan puts in front of Christians. He would like nothing better than to cause a Christian to let their guard down , take off their shoes, and wade right into a life of sinful living. "At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder." (Proverbs 23: 32)

So, BEE careful this summer that you don't get stung!

Marilyn

10 comments:

Mari said...

Great analogy and great post! Thanks for sharing it!

Dianna said...

Very good comparison in your post today about honey bees and Satan. Thank you for sharing, Marilyn.

Runner Mom said...

This waas great, Marilyn! Thanks you for sharing your wisdom! Will "bee" sure to look closer at things--no matter how lovely they are!!
Hugs!
Susan

Karin said...

Thanks for sharing these lessons from nature with us! My daughter was one to whom this happened when she was a teen - ouch, was she sore!! Great application!

Yolanda said...

Oh Marilyn, this so resonates with-in my heart. I just wrote: "Getting Prepared".

Love YOU!

Yolanda

Martha said...

You amaze me, Marilyn. The way you can take the simplest thing and relate it to a life lesson straight from the Bible. If you didn't know your Bible so well you couldn't do it.
Love you.
Martha

Leah Adams said...

And oh, man, does that sting hurt!!! Satan knows exactly how to defend his territory. He never gives up and he never lets up. We must beeeeee on guard.

Leah

Beverly Wooley said...

Wonderful post, Marilyn. I agree wholeheartedly with Martha. You are the BEST at taking the little things in our everyday lives and relating them to a biblical truth. Keep 'em coming, my friend!

LeeBird3 said...

Marilyn! I'm so glad to "find" you again! It's been a long time. Your post was "bee"utiful! Thanks for the reminder to watch where I step. Love, Lee

Alene said...

WOW! Awesome thoughts and words and I soooo agree! I also wrote about shoes today - about getting out of those comfortable shoes and putting on different ones. Blessings friend!