God in my mailbox

I've been trying to be more intentional about seeing God in the daily crevasses of life. You know, the not-so-obvious places.

This past weekend, one of these places happened to be in our mailbox.

God in my mailbox?

Well, sort of.

You see, on Wednesday this past week, a swarm of bees moved into our mailbox.

Within less than four days, they managed to create this:



Now, I'm sorry, but I find this utterly fascinating. To think that on Wednesday, there was nothing but a piece of plywood, and four days later, there is this incredibly intricate creation.

Something out of nothing - and crafted by insects! Astounding. What an amazing God we serve.

It took over three hours to lure the swarm out of our mailbox -- what was estimated to be approximately 10,000 bees, by the way.



While we stood outside watching the whole process, our friendly neighborhood beekeeper educated me on just how ignorant I really am.

I never knew, for example, that male bees (called drones) have no stinger. Crazy, huh? I have to smile when I think of how many people have probably run away in a state of mild panic, trying to avoid a noisy bee with no stinger.

I also learned that an experienced beekeeper is able to discern the general "mood" of the swarm, depending on their behavior at the time. Apparently swarms even give off a particular odor if they are likely to be agitated. Can you imagine that? Being able to smell whether the bees are going to get mad at you or not? It reminds me of those verses in 2 Corinthians 2:14-16:


But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life.


You can go ahead and laugh at my ignorance again, because when my kids asked if we could keep the honey-less comb in our house, I backed away from it and said, "Aren't the bees going to smell it and follow it??" To which our bee-brilliant friend assured me, "No, they won't follow it. They will only follow their queen."

Again, this fascinates me. Here are these 10,000 bees, hard at work, and suddenly their project has been removed from them. Do they get distracted by its absence? No. They follow their queen. Are they lacking purpose when their job no longer exists? Perhaps temporarily, but still, they follow their queen.

Now I realize that this comparison has serious limitations, but I think we can learn from the dedication seen here. Sure, we have jobs to fulfill and tasks to complete. We may do them with honorable intent, or we may just fulfill the cliche to look as busy as bees, while accomplishing nothing. Either way, we shouldn't let the task at hand become higher in priority than our dedication to our King.