“Samuel said, ‘Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel?’” (1 Samuel 15:17a, NIV).

Yesterday I attended the funeral for a dear woman who had cared for my children, and then their children, for 45 years. Her service was held in a small African American church, half filled with an even mixture of white and dark faces. I was amazed at the tributes offered by the children she had raised, stories of her great smile, her patience, her deep love for Christ, her gospel singing with children in her lap, the difference she made in the lives of each. She had owned very little treasure or fame, but she had lived her life for God and for His children.

How important do you have to be to be useful to God?

Who gets to decide what it means to be important?

In the eyes of a rich and educated world, this lady whose life we celebrated was small in importance. Her marriage did not work out. She never had children. She worked as a housekeeper her entire life, still working at 84 to support her financial needs. And yet, in the eyes of God she was a dear, faithful and important servant of Christ.

I sometimes think that we as humans compare each other like a bunch of ants who look around to see who’s the tallest. We practice the same analysis in imagining each other’s importance to God.

I envision God looking down at us like us looking down at those ants, discerning no difference in size at all, laughing at our comparisons, angry when we hurt each other because of pride and perceived levels of importance.

Speaking of ants, there is a species known as driver ants. We witnessed them marching through our home years ago in Nigeria, eating even the plastic on their way. They are blind and follow each other by the pheromones they excrete—long columns of sightless ants following the smell of those in front of them. A certain phenomenon occasionally afflicts them known as a death spiral (check it out on YouTube). When this occurs, the front ants get confused and turn to follow the pheromones of the ants at the end of the column, circling back and chasing the rear guard, like a dog chasing its tail. They continue to spiral until they die in exhaustion. What is needed in such a death spiral is for one ant to tear away from the circle of death and allow others to follow, disengaging from the mesmerizing scent and leading a new column, headed in a new direction, the direction of life.

We humans are much like these driver ants, confused and blindly following each other in a circle headed nowhere. However, the woman whose life we have just celebrated was one who pulled away from the spiral of death and moved in a different direction with at least 18 children and 35 grandchildren following her toward Jesus, purpose and life.

How’s that for importance?

Dear God,

Let me be as faithful.

Amen