In Job’s reply to one of his “comforters,” Zophar, he said, “But now ask the beasts and let them teach you; and the birds of the heavens, and let them tell you. Or speak to the earth, and let it teach you; and let the fish of the sea declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this, in whose hand is the life of every living thing. And the breath of all mankind” (Job 12:7-10).  

     We love to watch the wildlife on our property and see how God has equipped each in such a genius way to survive and thrive.  Yesterday we noticed that our bluebirds were back and immediately began building a nest in the same birdhouse they used last year.  During the winter we were entertained by various species of woodpeckers, including a pair of big pileated, that frequented our suet block hanging from our maple tree. Many black-capped chickadees, juncos, wrens and nuthatches also spent the winter with us, enjoying our feeders.  And, of course we are always overrun with turkeys!

     God’s word encourages us to observe how God has designed and cares for His creation.  Jesus even talks about that in His Sermon on the Mount (see Matt. 6:26-30).  The lesson, of course, is that if God has so designed and cares for His plants and animals, imagine how much He must care for us, the “crown of His creation” (read Psa.8 and 100). 

     Every one of God’s creatures shows us what an amazing Engineer/Creator we serve. Consider for example the giant sea turtles whose young navigate across the ocean guided by variations in Earth’s magnetic field. Scientists say the sense is derived from a light-detecting protein called “cryptochrome” specifically found in these animals. It didn’t just evolve over time. God put it there! Or consider bumblebees that build up a positive electrical charge as they fly and, using tiny filaments on their head and body, can detect the negative charge that flowers generate. Our God equipped them that way.  

     Or, consider how elephants use low frequency sound (inaudible to the human ear) to communicate with other elephants miles away.  Or, think about how God provided dogs with about 300 million olfactory receptors to amplify their sense of smell, compared with about 6 million that humans have.  The canine capacity for odor detection has been reported to be as much as 10,000 to 100,000 times that of the average human. And dogs can detect volatile organic compounds down to one part per trillion!  No wonder dogs make great drug detectors and can follow the tracks of an animal or detect the presence of a bird. 

     Every one of God’s creations has its own unique, special abilities highly engineered to survive and thrive on the earth.  But one of the most incredible is the one whose return we await any day now, the hummingbird.  They usually show up at our window to let us know we need to get our feeder out!  Not only are they equipped with such an amazing means of maneuverability with God’s design of their wing structure (wings that can beat 80 times a second!),  but scientists now know that they can see ultraviolet light in colors invisible to humans. “Researchers led by sensory ecologist Mary Caswell Stoddard at Princeton University tested wild broad-tailed hummingbirds in their natural setting and clearly showed the birds use their ultraviolet vision to forage for food” (Newsmax Maxlife, October 2020). The tiny birds acrobatic ability to swoop, swerve, and hover is made possible by a brain that processes color, motion, and other visual cues in a way that may be unique among birds. Their brains, the largest relative to body size of all birds, have dense arrays of retinal neurons and enhanced brain circuits for high-speed image processing, guidance, and collision avoidance (You really don’t need to worry about having a hummingbird accidentally jamb his beak into your head!) Ultraviolet vision enables a fast-flying bird like a hummingbird to navigate through dense brush by highlighting obstacles more clearly.  

     Interestingly, hummingbirds, with their amazing, expanded color vision, have no sense of smell, while dogs, as we observed, have a highly sensitive sense of smell but appear to be colorblind!  Again, God has given each one of His creatures specialized abilities, demonstrating His engineering genius.  Douglas Altshuler at the university of British Columbia said, “If we were able to sense what every animal could sense and put it into one brain, I don’t think we could make a brain big enough” (Newsmax Maxlife).  

     Well, as amazing as all of God’s creatures are, God made man in His own image, with a spirit that is aware of God and can communicate with and, as an act of the will, worship God in all His glory and can learn about Him by studying the world and universe around us.  And, speaking of the human brain which God designed, consider this: scientists now estimate that it has a memory capacity of 2.5 million gigabytes, or as much as the entire internet!  Just as a comparison reference, the average memory of a laptop computer is 256 gigabytes!  No wonder the Psalmist proclaimed: “I will give thanks to Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Thy works, and my soul knows it very well” (Psa. 139:14). 

Forever His,

Pastor Dave