Ant Hills

Today a friend of mine brought up a heated debate they've had with some of their friends. I never thought an argument would arise involving Bill Gates and Mother Theresa, but alas, I'm not right on many things. So if you want to know what this is all about, I ask that you read this small article.

In summary, the author states that Bill Gates has done more for humanity than Mother Theresa. He claims Bill Gates has had a bigger impact on this world because his massive profits and philanthropy efforts have had profound effects on the society around him. Now when we read something this controversal, we usually react both passionately and immediately. Some of us ring out in applause, and others of us squirm in anger. Whatever your reaction, I ask that you put it aside for a moment while we examine these statements and hopefully discover how much truth they contain.

Imagine we are all ants, and the ant piles we create are the wealth we earn, the money we make, the jobs we create, and the assistance we give to other people to earn wealth, make money, and create jobs. Living in our own little ant world, when we come across somebody like Mother Theresa, we probably won't see much of an ant pile. She chose to live a life of poverty in order to serve others in worse poverty. When we look at Bill Gates' pile, it would be enourmous. His efforts at Microsoft and philanthropy have produced countless jobs, charity donations, and unfathomable wealth. Bill Gates has built an ant pile so tall that we wouldn't see the top of it when standing next to it. We would probably have to build our antpiles so we could support his! So, when looking at this from our ant perspective, the author is 100% correct.

Now, let's imagine that our little ant world exists on a really large mountain. Let's also switch gears and pretend we are this mountain. Being enormous, we see each ant pile as basically the same. One really huge ant pile is so small compared to us that its size compared to other ant piles really doesn't matter. To us, Mother Theresa's ant pile looks really similar to Bill Gates' ant pile.

Bringing us back to real life...what if God is this mountain? Even though it is impossible, place yourself in His shoes. Think about seeing civilizations rise and fall as if they were houses of cards. Imagine being so vast that all the wealth, treasure, gold, and money in the world becomes dust. Even though Bill Gates' wealth and tangible contributions could be a bigger speck of dust than Mother Theresa's, it's still just a speck of dust. When you're standing at infinity, 1,000,000,000,000 and 1 become trivial. God is not interested in quantity.

If He is not interested in quantity, what is He interested in? Thankfully, Jesus addressed this issue many times while He walked the earth. I ask that you read Mark 12:41-44 before you continue.

As you can see from that passage, Jesus saw many people giving large sums of money. From our perspective, they contributed more than the woman. However, Jesus said the woman gave more. Why? God is not interested in how many dollars we give, how many jobs we create, or even how many people we help. God is interested in what is behind those things. God does not want our wealth. He wants our hearts and minds.

Only God is the judge of these things, but while Bill Gates has accumulated vast amounts of wealth and used it for the good of many people, Mother Theresa is like that poor woman who gave everything to God. When we reach the end of our lives, our ant piles will blow away in the wind and wash away in the rain. The mountain will stand for all time =D

"All men are like grass, and their glory is like the flowers in the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever."

Isaiah 40:6-8