August! Sometimes it is really, really hot, sometimes as cold and rainy as any other British Summer day.

You may not be able to count on the weather, but there is one thing you can count on.

Ants.

Flying ants.

Some people just put up with them. Others destroy the ant's nest with boiling water or ant powder or some other method.

That makes me think.

OK, there are a lot of these ants. I mean, hundreds. But what have they actually done to merit extermination? Most will have done nothing at all, but the potential is there.

What if we treated them with justice? What if we only killed those ants that broke the laws we created for them? Thou shalt not enter my house. Thou shalt not bite. Thou shalt not partake of my food or drink. We would have to have evidence and witnesses.

Does all this sound silly? After all, they are just ants, and we are human beings. If we feel threatened by ants, we eliminate them, as many as we can. Most of us would not feel any guilt about it. We would feel we were just being hygienic.

Everything OK so far?

Here is another thought. It may seem totally different, but bear with me.

Supposing I was a potter, and spent my time making drinking mugs. Every mug different.

Now, supposing I were to take some of them and smash them. No reason, except I chose to. Have I done anything wrong? Of course not. I made the mugs, I own them. I have a right to do with them as I please.

Now I come to the point.

As human beings, we are so insignificant in this universe that we might as well not exist. We are not the largest, fastest or strongest of creatures. We may not be the most intelligent.

Our planet is one of the smallest in our solar system.

Our sun is small compared with many others. In fact, it is classified as a yellow dwarf.

Our solar system is tucked away in an arm of the Milky Way, a galaxy of over 200 billion stars.

Our galaxy is 1 of approximately 170 billion occupying a sphere with a radios of 46 trillion light years - and that is just what is visible. Who knows what is beyond that?

So, as individuals, nations, or even a whole planet of some 6,777,000,000 people is nothing compared to the universe.

As Christians, we believe that God made all of that, and he made us. Just as surely as the potter made the drinking mugs. If God decided to blow up a star, or planet, or to destroy a person, that is his choice and his choice alone. Who are we, or anyone else, to question it?

God is infinitely greater than us than we are greater than ants, and yet we have no thoughts about how individual ants should be treated, so why should we expect God to think any more than that about us?

Yet the Bible says that some of us have been chosen. Our names are written in the Book of Life. We have been given grace to receive the truth of the Gospel, to be baptised in water and Holy Spirit, to perform the good works allotted to us, to be transformed into the image of Christ Himself.

If we are Christians, it is because God decided that we would be. It was not by our choice.

CIA statistics say that 1 in 3 people identify themselves as Christians. I would venture to suggest that only a small proportion of these have made it a goal in their lives to obey the teachings of Christ.

Christian. You have been chosen. Selected from before time. Set aside from the rest of the world for God's own purpose.

That means that others have not been chosen. To them, the Gospel is nonsense, and Christians are delusional.

Meditate on this. Understand what it means. You are nothing. Your strength is nothing. Your wisdom is nothing. Your knowledge is nothing. Any good thing you do is worthless.

But God chose you, called you out of the world, made you his child, gave you his Holy Spirit, gave you a future of eternal life in fellowship with him.

In this whole universe - however big it is, however old it is - God has chosen you to be one of the most important of all created beings. You will live when the last star dies. You will know the creator of all things as your father.