"Go to the ant, you sluggard; (lazy person) Consider its ways and be wise. It has no commander, no overseer, or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest." Proverbs 6:6-8
We have all watched ants. They are busy ones. They can carry objects many times larger than their own bodies. They seem never to stop. They are a simple illustration of work. Nothing else. This is not a verse to build a theology on. It is a simple illustration. That's all.
Ant counters claim there are 20,000 different species of these little guys. Some build mounds as tall as tents. Others build tunnels fifteen feet into the ground. Some will sting and bring redness like the fire ant. Some can crawl over our bodies and never bite at all. Some live in wood just like termites,. Some, like the army ants, simply stay on the move all the time looking for food. The red ants are a food supply for horned toads. They mind their own business as much as they can. We ought to protect them.
Coming on the scene in 2002 In Pasadena, Texas is the "crazy ant". An exterminator named Tom Rasberry found them there. They are now called the Rasberry Ant. These guys are trouble. Bad trouble. They don't sting so much as they eat all the wrong things, like your electric wires, bird eggs, and whatever. NASA is frightened by them getting into their expensive wiring. Crazy ants! Why the name? They run about in all directions. One woman described them as being like race horses running down a track going both ways. The Rasberry ants are spreading through the Houston area. If they haven't already they will hitch a ride and come to where you live. I know that sounds crazy, but so are they.
Solomon wasn't looking at a crazy ant when he wrote his illustration. I do, however, see people every day who are crazy-ant like. Running here and there with little planning or purpose in their movements. Their antics affect others as well as themselves. Maybe we could say, non Biblically, "go to the crazy ant and also learn a lesson". A lesson of what not to do and how to be.