Bee Spiritual!

Get (Super)Natural Again!

Once: Life as a Master Distiller!

What do you think about?  Do you think about good things or evil things? God made humans to live as natural extractors and distillers! Since he is both spirit and invisible by nature, we cannot see him completely now or ever.1 But he has created a whole physical universe from which, in our right minds, we can extract or draw spiritual truths out of what we see and experience. Thomas Goodwin believed that a heart right with God “will out of all God’s dealings with him, out of the things he sees and hears, will distil holy and sweet, useful meditations from them."2 Adam and Eve experienced this perfect meditation before the Fall. God made Adam’s heart in a “state of innocence. He saw God in all, and all raised up his heart to thankfulness and praise.”3

Then: Experts in Evil!

But sin entered the world through Adam and Eve and corrupted their human nature. God’s severe verdict on the ancient human race remains just as true today: “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5 ESV). Born as sinners, humans lack not only the desire to see the spiritual good in all that God made but also that ability: “We ordinarily and naturally lack the ability to raise and extract holy and useful considerations and thoughts from all ordinary occurrences and occasions.”4 

Worse than choosing not to meditate on spiritual good that can be found in ordinary life, people do the opposite, drawing evil out of good: From the good gift of family, people draw out conflicts, from the good gifts given to others, people extract envy and coveting. Even when God meets our basic needs with fruitful seasons providing “food and gladness” (Acts 14:17), people live in sinful attitudes, actions, and even idolatry (verse 15). Some scoffers today even dedicate their lives to science, studying God’s wisely designed and beautiful creation while denying that our Designer exists!

Now: An Ability Regifted!

            If you have been born again (John 3:3) with a new nature (2 Corinthians 5:17), you have renewed abilities. Just like God designed bees to get what they need from flowers, so we too can get much spiritual food for digestion (meditation) from what is around us: “As the bee sucks honey out of every flower, and a good stomach sucks out some sweet and wholesome nourishment out of what it takes unto itself; so doth a holy heart, so far as sanctified, convert and digest all into spiritual useful thoughts.”  Many have observed that only Christians can truly meditate in godly ways.5

How to Bee a Better Extractor!

                Bees are amazing at collecting nectar and making honey, but they need ideal conditions. In tough weather, bee productivity falters: “Cold temperatures, strong winds, and excessive rain can all affect the bees’ ability to collect nectar and produce honey. Similarly, extreme heat or drought can also impact the bees’ productivity.”6 So, what can we do to extract good and godly thoughts from the world around us? 

1.  Bee Practicing the Spiritual Disciplines!

            The best conditioning for meditation is the healthy practice of spiritual disciplines, such as reading and memorizing the Bible and praying.  The Christian who writes out thoughts to God from the pages of her Bible, the man who prays throughout the day, and the teen who memorizes God’s word and prays about it - will all easily find their way to “seeing” God in the ordinary.

            Spiritual disciplines require time and concentrated effort, just as bees must spend most of their time collecting nectar. James Naismith is best known as the founder of basketball, but his life as a devout Christian and Presbyterian minister is lesser known. He thought about meditation – a lot. His illustration of the difference between butterflies and bees is famous:

I saw a butterfly. The butterfly was beautiful, and it would alight on a flower and then it would flutter to another flower and then to another, and only for a second or two it would sit and it would move on. It would touch as many lovely blossoms as it could, but derive absolutely no benefit from it... I noticed a bee, just a little bee. But the bee would light on a flower and it would sink down deep into the flower and it would extract all the nectar and pollen that it could carry. It went in empty every time and came out full.7

Commenting on that famous illustration, John MacArthur wrote that we, too, should feed directly on God’s Word.

Some Christians, like that butterfly, flit from Bible study to Bible study, from sermon to sermon, and from commentary to commentary, while gaining little more than a nice feeling and some good ideas. Others, like the botanist, study Scripture carefully and take copious notes. They gain much information but little truth. Others, like the bee, go to the Bible to be taught by God and to grow in knowledge of Him. Also, like the bee, they never go away empty.8

2. Bee Confessing!

Confessing your sins will lighten your load and allow you to fly higher and farther spiritually. Here is a helpful way to get to the bottom of your most recent transgression. Like a detective who creates a timeline leading up to a crime, go back and determine where your thinking went off the rails (more colorfully said, “what was your stinkin’ thinkin’?"). You did not just randomly sin! Instead, you did what you wanted to do when you sinned.

Beeware! To very loosely paraphrase John Owen: [Bee] killing sin, or it will [bee] killing you!

Go back and determine what you did wrong during the day, the week, or the month. What caused your lack of appreciation for God, grumbling about your circumstances, etc., that pushed you to extract evil out of the good life God gave you? Just like beekeepers work to determine why the beehive fails to produce or members die, determine what you did wrong and confess it to your gracious Heavenly Father. Then, ask him for a renewed heart and mind (Ephesians 4:23; Colossians 3:10) so that you can “float” more above mere mundane life, glorifying him more.

3. Bee in Community!

            Honeybees do not live or work alone! And neither can you! God provides a spiritual family for each of his children – a local church. And many of the experiences that we have at church make us better extractors (meditators).

Think about what might happen after a long and hard week. You drag yourself to church, having extracted from your week a complaining spirit and grumbly words. But there, at church, you find a Christian who, despite suffering terribly from some chronic or even terminal disease, has extracted from her week praise and joy.

After a quick prayer for repentance for your awful conclusions about your circumstances, you can join her and many others in prayer and praise. Your spiritual brothers and sisters are modeling the very best in spiritual distillation for you, but you have to be present with them for their examples to help you.

4. Bee Excited about an Eternity of Extraction and Exhalation!

            How encouraging that we connect to God through his Word Book (the Bible) and his World Book of creation all around us!  And be even more excited that we will forever be on the physical New Heaven and Earth (Revelation 21:1-2), where we will extract and exalt in the goodness of God from all around us!

Would you share with me and others in the comment section how God has encouraged you through what you have extracted from your observations and experiences?

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Writer's Note: (For the technical and detailed readers, like I would be, who wonder why:) This is the first time that I have used AI-generated images for a blog. My Canva Pro account includes AI image generation. The first and second images are generated images, and the rest are real. Also, illustrations help make points clearer, but each has its limitations. While bees are better images of meditators, God made butterflies also very important and beautiful. Perhaps I will use them for a later blog to teach a different point!

1We will see the glory of God in the face of the Son, but God in his invisible, spiritual nature will be forever beyond us: "God’s invisibility means that God’s total essence, all of his spiritual being, will never be able to be seen by us, yet God still shows himself to us partially in this age and more fully in the age to come^..” Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, Second Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020), 222.

2Thomas Goodwin, The Works of Thomas Goodwin, vol. 3 (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1861), 51.

3Ibid.

4Ibid.

5Linda Alcock, Deeper Still: Finding Clear Minds and Full Hearts through Biblical Meditation (Charlotte, NC: Good Book Company, 2020), 416.

6Anthony Carter, "Why is There No Honey in My Hive?" 2 August 2024, https://beekeeping-101.com/why-is-there-no-honey-in-my-hive/

7A. Naismith, 1200 Notes, Quotes and Anecdotes [Chicago: Moody, 1962], 15.

8John F. MacArthur Jr., Ephesians, MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1986), 372.