Observe the Ant: Death Spiral

“Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise.”
— Proverbs 6:6

“So, what do you do?”

This question is the most common way people try to figure out who someone is as a person. There are numerous problems with the approach. Especially since who we are as Christians is determined by who Christ is and what He has done. However, it is a real world situation which casts light on the fact that what we do matters.

Proverbs 6:6-11 warns against laziness and failure to take advantage of the day through meaningful productivity. We are encouraged to observe the ant. To consider how it has no captain or ruler, but still works as a community consistently gathering resources to provide for the whole. We are to take it as an example of productive work to provide for our families and community.

Ants can teach us many things about work; for good and ill. They are diligent workers completely reliant on their community. But the lesson is not about working ceaselessly. Working for works sake. Or going about business when it is only busy-ness. It is about productive work for the betterment of the family and community. This is the lesson we often fail to grasp.

Observe the army ant. Most worker army ants are completely blind. They diligently work following the scent trails laid down from the chemical pheromones released by the ant in front of them. However, if an ant makes a mistake and goes off-course and accidentally circles back to cross the trail they have already walked, a death spiral begins. The entire line of ants will continually walk in circles until they die of dehydration, starvation or exhaustion. Sounds like many jobs in today’s world.

This death spiral phenomenon was first documented by William Beebe in 1921. He described an ant mill (death spiral) of circling ants 1,210 feet in circumference. It would take ants two and half hours to make one revolution. And they continued circling until all of them died.

From the moment Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden, mankind was charged with and obligated to work. We are to diligently work to provide for our family and community. However, we are not to do it blind!

Many are blinded by the prestige, love of money, comforts and simply trying to keep up with their neighbors. We follow the scent trail of social acceptance and find ourselves in a death spiral. We work ever so diligently, but for what? We don’t know how to get out of the death spiral because we are completely consumed with following the trails of others to gain acceptance, recognition, prestige, etc.

What should be a “red flag” in this process often becomes the most natural worldly expression of our being: “what do you do?” If in answering that question, you believe you are telling people who you are, you have a problem. What you do is NOT who you are!

Who you are is defined by our Lord. What matters is who He created you to be, not what you do. Who He says you are counts, not what the world says you are. For the world will always define you by what you do. Who you are is defined by what Christ has done.

As Galatians 4:4-7 states, “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out ‘Abba, Father!’ Therefore, you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.” Who we are is determined by what God has done!

It is why I often say, “I am who I am because the Great I Am said I am, and that is enough!”

As long as we walk this earth, work will and should be a part of our lives. We should be about meaningful work providing for our families and communities. However, we should not be about following the scent of prestige and accomplishment into a death spiral. We should be about following the Spirit of Jesus crying out in our hearts! We should be about following our Abba, Father! For everything eternal and worthwhile accomplished in my life was accomplished by Him!

God is not so concerned about what we do. He is much more concerned about who we are; or, more pointedly, whose we are. What we do will always be a natural out-flowing of who we truly see ourselves to be.

I challenge you today, know whose you are. Know who you are. Work hard. “And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. …And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men.” (Colossians 3:17, 23)

© 2026 Warren Martin. All rights Reserved.