Flying Ants, Fleeting Lives, and the Question We Can’t Avoid

If you ever find yourself on Norfolk Island in the Springtime, there’s a good chance you’ll encounter a small creature that has an uncanny ability to provoke big thoughts.

You don’t need directions to find them. They’ll find you. They get in your hair. Up your sleeves. And, most memorably, up your nose. Our kids hated them when we lived there. One moment, the island feels peaceful and still. The next, it’s biblical - Flying Ant season. And then - almost as quickly as they arrive - they’re gone.

Flying ants live briefly. Very briefly. Their entire existence seems condensed into a frantic window of movement and reproduction. No time to eat. No time to build. No time to settle. Just a brief burst of activity… and then nothing. Watching them, you can’t help but wonder: What was the point of all that?

Sit with that question for a moment - preferably somewhere ant-free - and let it turn toward your own life.

Here for a Moment

From a distance, flying ants are mostly an inconvenience. They leave little behind other than irritation. But zoom out far enough, and an uncomfortable thought begins to press in: How different are we?

Yes, we live longer. Many decades, if we’re lucky. But in the scale of history - or eternity - our lives are just as brief. Here for a moment. Busy. Striving. And then gone. Which raises the question we so often avoid: What is my life actually contributing? What will last? What will remain when I’m no longer here?

These aren’t abstract questions anymore. We’re watching people ask them in real time.

The Great Re-Think

We’re living through a quiet cultural shift. High-achieving professionals are walking away from careers that once defined them. Norfolk Island again - when we lived there we saw with our own eyes all the people trading their offices in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, for a sea change on the island. People are tired of chasing things that don’t seem to satisfy.

And the questions are coming earlier now:

• Is this stress worth it?

• Is my work costing me my life?

• Is this really all there is?

These aren’t midlife questions anymore. They’re being asked in our thirties. Sometimes earlier. And they’re urgent. I don’t pretend to have neat answers. But the Bible does something better than that. It tells the truth.

Ecclesiastes and the Honesty We Need

Few books of the Bible speak as plainly about life as Ecclesiastes.

Written by “the Teacher,” it refuses easy optimism and cheap meaning. Instead, it looks life square in the face and names what we all feel but rarely say. After sitting with Ecclesiastes for a while, five truths rise to the surface - truths that cut through the noise and speak directly to our flying-ant lives.

1. Earthly goods cannot satisfy our deepest hunger

Health. Wealth. Pleasure. Success. Recognition. They promise much, but deliver little. Ecclesiastes names this reality with brutal honesty:

“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher.“Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”(Ecclesiastes 1:2)

The Teacher recounts his own experiment with pleasure:

“I said to myself, ‘Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.’ But that also proved to be meaningless.”(Ecclesiastes 2:1)

And when it comes to money and success, the verdict is no kinder:

“Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless.”(Ecclesiastes 5:10)

Our souls are hungry for something deeper. We chase pleasure, health, wealth, possessions, and prestige, convinced they will fill the emptiness inside us. But they never do.

2. Life’s treasures are too fragile to trust

Even if these goods did satisfy, they cannot be relied upon. The Teacher reflects honestly on the fragility of everything we work for:

“So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a person may labor with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then they must leave all they own to another who has not toiled for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune.”(Ecclesiastes 2:20–21)

He goes on:

“I have seen a grievous evil under the sun: wealth hoarded to the harm of its owners, or wealth lost through some misfortune… Everyone comes naked from their mother’s womb, and as everyone comes, so they depart. They take nothing from their toil that they can carry in their hands.”(Ecclesiastes 5:13–15)

And he asks the question we all feel but can’t answer:

“For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?”(Ecclesiastes 6:12)

Jesus echoes the same warning:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.”(Matthew 6:19)

Your bank balance could disappear. Your job, your reputation, your health- gone in a moment. So Jesus urges us instead:

“But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”(Matthew 6:20–21)

3. Pursuing happiness leaves us empty-handed

Solomon chased happiness harder than anyone - and found it just as elusive. He describes the full scope of his striving:

“I tried cheering myself with wine… I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards… I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure… Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 2:3-11)

Happiness cannot be seized. It is received - or not at all.

4. Human wisdom cannot grasp God’s purposes

This might be the hardest truth of all. We don’t know as much as we think we do.

We live with unanswered questions. Especially in suffering. Human wisdom falls short in grasping God's profound purposes. We, as mere mortals, are utterly powerless to penetrate and fully understand the divine laws governing the universe and our lives within it.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end." (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

"For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?" (Ecclesiastes 6:12)

"When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe the labor that is done on earth—people getting no sleep day or night— then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning. Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it." (Ecclesiastes 8:16-17)

5. Rest in God and receive his gifts with gratitude

Here’s where Ecclesiastes surprises us. The answer is not despair.The answer is not withdrawal.The answer is not frantic striving. The answer is rest. Receive life as a gift. Enjoy what God gives - food, work, relationships - without trying to control the whole story. Let God be God.

Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do. Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun - all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom. (Ecclesiastes 9:7-10)

This isn’t resignation. It’s trust. Stop attempting to play God; allow God to be God.

"A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?" (Ecclesiastes 2:24-25)

"I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God." (Ecclesiastes 3:12-13)

More Than Flying Ants

Ecclesiastes tells the truth about the limits of life - but it also leaves us longing for more. And that longing is not accidental. It prepares us for Jesus. Where Ecclesiastes exposes the emptiness of life without God, Jesus offers fullness with God. Where Ecclesiastes confronts us with death, Jesus meets it - and defeats it.

I write as a fellow flying ant. Here briefly. Gone soon. Don’t waste your days chasing what cannot satisfy. Don’t measure your life by what will not last. Jesus invites us to stop striving, to stop grasping, and to rest in him. In him, even short lives carry eternal weight. In him, our fleeting days are filled with lasting meaning. Be still. Let God be God.

The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails - given by one shepherd Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them. Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body. Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter:Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil. (Ecclesiastes 12:11-14)