One of the members at Highland Home told me about something that he observed while sitting on his porch the other day. Somehow, a little one-inch worm that was hanging off the edge of the roof caught his attention. He watched it as it started to lower itself on some kind of “string” that it appeared to be creating. It took long minutes of obviously great toil. Finally, the worm neared the first step of the porch. It abruptly stopped, and began to climb up, apparently eating the “string” it had made. Again, it took minutes of difficult labor for the worm to reach the top again. Then the little worm just made its way across the roof and out of sight.
Before I go further, I have no scientific knowledge about this worm. I do not know why it did all that it did. I am sure that it was doing what God built into it through nature to do. I do not wish by my observations to indict God’s directions to that little worm. However, I cannot help but think of some ideas that this little drama of the worm brings to mind.
If you have no goal, effort alone is not enough. Proverbs 29:18 reads, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Vision there involves, in context, the keeping of the law. However, I truly believe that the expression is not misused when we speak of the vision (based on truth) that leads us in a proper direction. Too many people have no direction, and they just go up and down, going nowhere, like our little worm friend.
We can waste a lot of time and effort going nowhere. Sometimes we put so much effort into things that do not really matter. There may be a hidden reason that the worm did what it did, but it appears to be an exercise in futility. Worrying is just one example of an exercise in futility. It just wastes our time and depletes our energy, with no discernible benefit (Philippians 4:6-7). We can spend so much time majoring in the minors that we fail to maintain the majors.
Sometimes others will think our efforts to be futile, when we know they are not. Paul said, “I press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14). Many see our time spent in activities such as worship, prayer, Bible study and other religious activities as a waste of time. We know better. I remember being criticized by some fellow preachers when I was a young married man because I said that I wanted to call my wife when we were going to be late. They thought that was a futile effort. I thought it was a necessary politeness (and still do). We can think of many other examples. I wonder how many times that worm will stop and do the same thing. I wonder why it does it. If it could talk to us, what would it say about its activities? Maybe nothing more than, “I don’t know why I do it.” Or it might say, “Because that is what God designed me to do.” There is no more noble motivation (Ecclesiastes 12:13).
I hope that little worm did not take all that time and expend all that effort for no good reason. Yet, much more, I hope that we will not be participants in “exercises of futility” in our lives. Some of those could keep us out of heaven.
