[Steve Myers] I was watching a nature program the other day, and it was talking about the plight of honeybees and the challenges that there's been. It seems that so many pesticides and other things have caused such a tremendous problem with just the numbers of honeybees that have been pollinating.

And one of the things that really caught my attention, other than just the issue itself, was how honeybees work. And I went through a number of different statistics and it talked about a honeybee going to crimson clover to collect the pollen in order to make honey for the hive. And one of the things that was interesting is it talked about this particular clover that there's an eighth of a grain of sugar that's in that clover. And then it went on to say that it takes 7,000 of those grains to make a pound of honey.

So as the program went on, it was emphasizing the fact of how often a honeybee would have to do that in order to get enough honey for a pound of sugar or a pound of honey. So do you know how many times that would take? It would have to visit that clover 56,000 times to get enough for a pound of honey.

Now, the other thing that's, kind of, interesting about this is that that clover isn't just one head of the flower. It has multiple tubes in that clover, something like 60 or more. And so when you begin to translate that into numbers, that honeybee has to go through this particular operation, get this, 3.6 million times in order to get enough of that sweetness for a pound of honey.

And as I considered that, I think about, well, why do they continue to do that? You talk about...talk about a tenacity, talk about a commitment and a persistence. Boy, they've got it. Of course, they've got all their friends of the hive to help out as well. But for you and I, do we sometimes face the challenges of life? We go through these things over and over again, and sometimes it just feels like, well, maybe we should just forget it and give up. You see, when we look to this honeybee, I think there's some inspiration there that God really wants us to take to heart.

Peter put it a little bit differently, but I think it connects to this story that I saw in this nature program. 1 Peter 1:6 is something that I think does connect. And Peter says this, "In this, you greatly rejoice. Though now for a little while, if need be, you've been grieved by various trials."

Yeah. We're trying to collect this honey in our life. We're trying to live God's way. We're trying to have the mind of Christ. Sometimes it's challenging. We go through difficulties. We go through trials, we go through suffering and we are grieved. But ultimately Peter writes, "Yeah, we go through these trials that the genuineness of our faith being more precious than gold that perishes though it's tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom not having seen, you love."

And so he in a sense is telling us our life is, kind of, like that honeybee at times. We have to do these things. We have to face challenges over and over and over again. But you know, at the end of that, there's gold or in the bee's case, there's honey.

And so God has a remarkable promise for us. So let's keep at it. Let's have the persistence that we need. Let's remember that to have the tenacity in order to keep going because, ultimately, Peter says, we'll receive the end of our faith, the salvation of our souls. And so we look forward to that ultimate promise that God gives to us. So let's keep that in mind and let's be persistent as we face the challenges of life.

That's "BT Daily." We'll see you next time.