If you pay attention to the natural world, it will teach you many helpful lessons. It always amazes me how my bees offer me bits of wisdom applicable to my own life. When I observe their daily habits and compare them to my own, I’m convicted and a little envious. Oh, that I could be like the bees!
Have you ever longed to fly on your own without the aid of a machine? Some of my best dreams involve gliding over the world with my own wings. If I could be like the bees, buzzing from flower to flower, my heart would soar. Weighed down with a heavy load, I’d dive back into the hive to deliver my cache of pollen and nectar. Once accomplished, I’d take off again on another mission, all for the benefit of my queen and her colony.
This colony is a complex society of bees, each with specific tasks, performed to support the hive. Most people think only of the foraging bees they see in their gardens as representatives of the colony. But, in fact, there are thousands of other worker bees living within the hive that play crucial roles also.
For instance, did you know that nurse bees care for the young ones after they’re hatched? Some guard the hive while others build up the comb to store honey and pollen for winter. There even are bees to clean the hive and undertaker bees to dispose of the dead. All these worker bees are female although there are a few males in the hive. These drone bees have only one role: mate with a queen and then die.
A queen mates once with a drone and has enough eggs to supply a hive for sometimes up to five years. The lifespan of the workers is anywhere from six weeks in the summer months to four months over the winter. But, during their short lives, all their activity centers on a singular purpose: to support their colony and serve their queen. There are no individualists within the hive. Every bee works for the benefit of the whole group.
As I look back on the July 4th holiday, Independence Day, I’m reminded by my bees what independence really means. Our forefathers fought for freedom from despots. They longed for independent rule from the British king. But this independence didn’t mean they were free to do whatever they wanted without regard to others. Yes, the founders of our country were individuals but their cooperation with all those living in the thirteen colonies was imperative if they were to become a strong nation. Almost two hundred fifty years later, we should pay attention to their wisdom.
Individualism without regard to the whole of society is a recipe for disaster. It’s like every bee hoarding honey for itself and not sharing it with the colony. Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? All the bees will die if they don’t work together for the good of the whole. Shouldn’t we take heed and listen to this wisdom?
The Apostle Paul speaks to this issue in the Corinthian church nearly 2000 years ago.
You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body. It’s exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (This is what we proclaimed in word and action when we were baptized.) Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain—his Spirit—where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free—are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive.
1 Corinthians 12:12-13 Message Bible
Just like a colony of bees, Paul admonished the early church to work together as one body, serving King Jesus and each other. If only we, as the Body of Christ today, could glean wisdom from nature, throw off destructive individualism, and be like the bees. In One Spirit, our lives would grow and thrive together here on earth and into eternity.
