Honeybees and Yellowjackets


Last night while watching a taped episode of The Amazing Race we saw teams race to build a home for bees.  

Did you know that according the the United Nations Environment Program, of the 100 crop varieties that provide 90% of the world's food, 71 are pollinated by bees?

My cousin is a beekeeper, and I heartily believe that beekeepers are to be commended.  Because although they continually risk being stung - beekeepers minister to the bees.

However, bees have a doppelganger that is not quite so pleasant - the yellowjacket wasp. 

In fact, yellowjackets are so bad that honeybees are high on the menu of insects on which yellowjackets feed.  Besides killing and eating individual bees, yellowjackets also raid hives for larvae, pollen and honey.

So I went to bed thinking about honeybees and yellowjackets and I woke up thinking "bad company corrupts good character." (1 Corinthians 15:33).  It is a verse I have quoted here recently, and it is one that our minister quoted yesterday.  For me, that means God is telling me, "listen up, Susan..."

And I considered how that has played out in my own life and the worldly decisions I've made after watching close friends make the same ones.  Decisions based on my status or feeling in the "here and now" rather than ones made with a view of eternity.

And I think about a young girl named Salome, who goes to dance for her father the King and the guests he has invited to join him at his birthday party.  The King is so pleased with her performance that he promises to give her anything she asks for (including and up to 1/2 of his kingdom).  

But young Salome's mother Herodias is a sinful woman whose sin has been called out by a man named John the Baptist. So, when Salome asks her mother, "What should I ask for?"  Herodias quickly replies, "The head of John the Baptist," which then Salome does - making her an accomplice to one of the most gruesome and heinous murders in the Bible. (See Matthew 14, Mark 6:14-29).

Think of that - the corruption of an innocent!

I believe there can be nothing quite so evil as the company that does that.  And yet, it is happening today.

It is happening in our schools and our universities.  It is happening with the things we allow our children to watch on TV and social media.  It is happening at an accelerated rate as our world slips father and father into the hands of Satan. It is happening RIGHT BEFORE OUR EYES. 

So what can be done?

I feel as if we can no longer sit back and say, "Well, this is the way the world is - what can we do about it?"

Instead - we must be like the beekeeper who risks being stung, but who works to protect the honeybees by calling out - and then shooing out the yellowjackets.





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