Ants. I’ve experienced them in the hot and humid coastal areas of Indonesia, but now we’ve moved to a dryer climate at 5150 feet elevation. To my surprise, my kitchen was overrun with the little black vermin! If I so much as dropped a crumb, there they were! Usually as I adjust to overseas living, I also adjust to the ants, but this time their sheer numbers perturbed me.

I tried plugging their holes with dish soap. That worked – for about a day. I borrowed liquid poison, but to no avail. My friend Beth recommended ant chalk – and even brought me some since there wasn’t any available in town. It worked! The ants hated the stuff. Elated, I watched as they marched up to the line of chalk, hesitated, and then turned back. My counters were safe! Or so I thought.

Beth and Linda

After a few days, the chalk would wear off in certain spots, and the persistent critters would find a place to cross. Undaunted, I’d get the chalk out again, and reseal the line with a flourish. No more ants. Now my chalk lines just needed some daily maintenance and we were A-OK.

One morning as I spied the little black nuisances breaking through my chalk line, God whispered to me, “Linda, these ants are like your familiar sins.” That stung a bit as I thought about a recent “familiar” sin that God had convicted me about. “Now,” He continued, “You need daily maintenance with the help of my Holy Spirit in that area. Consciously choose to put off that sin and let me be your chalk line.”

I glanced at my lines of ant chalk with new understanding, and a new desire to be holy. “Lord, give me the tenacity with my sins that I have with the ants!” I prayed silently.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Jesus Christ.” Romans 6:11