Chapter 9 - The Winter Arrives

Daniel and Noah continued walking down the Narrow Path. As they walked, they began to talk about how cold it was getting.

“Wow, it is getting so cold out here,” Noah said.

“Yeah, the summer and fall are almost over,” Daniel replied. “The cold time of winter is here.”

“You know what that means, don’t you Daniel?” Noah said.

“Yes, the time of the snake, and the time of the lying king is here,” Daniel said. “We must not listen to them, but must have faith and hope in Jesus until the winter is over!”

Suddenly, the ants came to the bottom of a big valley. In the valley, they saw many different roads next to the Narrow Path. All of the roads looked nice on the outside. One road had lots of candy on it. Another road had toys scattered everywhere on it. Another road had lots of shiny lights on it. The ants looked down these different roads, and something in them wanted the candy, the toys, and the shiny lights. But they also knew that these roads were not good, even though they looked nice on the outside. As they looked, they also saw some ants who had decided to leave the Narrow Path and take these bad roads. Suddenly they saw a snake and a man with a crown on his head. 

The snake and the man said with a sneaky voice, “Hello little ants. You should go down these roads. Don’t they look nice? Why don’t you just leave the Narrow Path?”

As soon as they spoke, Daniel and Noah remembered everything that Jesus had told them through the owl, the horse, the eagles, the elephant, the giraffe, the turtle, and the lion. They said, “No! You are the snake and the lying king! We will not get off of the Narrow Path! Jesus is the only true King!”

Then Daniel and Noah began to shout to the ants who had left the Narrow Path and who had taken some of the other roads.

“Come back to the Narrow Path!” they shouted.

Some of the ants did not listen to Daniel and Noah, but some did turn around and came back to the Narrow Path.

“Thank you so much,” these ants said to Daniel and Noah when they got back on the Narrow Path. “We did something very sad. We listened to the snake’s lies and went on the bad roads. But when we heard you roaring, we remembered that only the Narrow Path goes to a good place.” Then they asked Daniel and Noah, “May we walk with you the rest of the way to the New Jerusalem?”

Daniel and Noah answered excitedly, “Of course you can! The hard time of winter is almost over, and the warm time of spring is almost here. That means that we are not far from Jesus and the New Jerusalem.”

All of the ants continued to walk down the Narrow Path. They walked very close together to help each other stay warm during the rest of the winter. They all decided that no matter how hard it might get, they were all going to help each other stay on the Narrow Path until they all reached the New Jerusalem.”