Throw up the Flag

A while back I found this hive queenless.. they had several queen cells formed and I thought they had the situation under control.  When a hive is growing and breeding a new queen you need to give them space.  If you open the hive on a newly hatched queen you can cause a disruption in pheromones and cause a riot that would make Ferguson look like five year olds on a playground.


Several weeks later I decided to check and make sure the hive was queen right.  It wasn't. Why, it wasn't I don't know...perhaps she was eaten on her madien flight. perhaps she grew weary and couldn't make it back. Maybe she never even made it out of the hive. Maybe the rest of the hive followed her and none of them returned. There are a million "could be's"

Regaurdless, when I opened the hive instead of finding a thriving body I found this...wax moth. box after box.  frame after frame. covered in putrid filth.

While the bees were busy dealing with life, they had turned their back and the enemy crept in.

The hive was three boxes high and I began to disassemble it rather roughly.  In the bottom box, however, I found a cluster of bees maybe the size of a softball still trying to live in all that mess.

It broke my heart.

my bees do that a lot.

with tears in my eyes I started to move slower, quieter. I pulled the two frames they were gathered on and speaking softly to them I looked for a queen. No queen.  So I shook them gently into a neigboring hive to rest and recover and then get back to work.  Some of the bees flew into the air rather than dropping into the hive but I knew that with their hive gone and their sisters in the other hive they would soon join it.  I finished my disassembling.

Much to my surprise when I went back to the fourwheeler with my last armfull of stuff, hanging on the bottom of one of the boxes was a small cluster of the bees that had flown.  "Girls, this won't do.  you can't live here." and I scooped them up and dropped them on the porch of the other hive.  They threw up the white flag and went in.

Driving off,  I got to thinkin'.

So. much. like. me.

So. much. like. you.

us.

So. much. like. Him.

Do we understand that when our Saviour sees us living in our filth.  Struggling through this life caught in the webs of our sin.  Trying to do it on our own.  Giving our million and one excuses as to why we are where we are.

It breaks His heart.

I do that a lot.

But (I love the but) His compassion moves Him towards us.  Our repentance, our surrender,  He cannot refuse.   He lifts us.  He gives us new life.

We don't have to continue living in our filth.

We don't have to return to it.

He wants only good for us.  To give us life and to give it more abundantly.

"And He that sat upon the throne, said, behold I make all things new.
And he said unto me, write: for these words are true and faithful."
Revelation 21:5

How blessed we are that He is willing to wade through the filth to find us.

How blessed are we that He is true and faithful.

All we have to do is throw up the flag.