“Lord, Thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is.” Acts 4:24
Of the 85,000 kinds of flies in the world, the most pesky and best known is the common house fly. It has been called “the most dangerous insect in North America,” because of the germs it spreads. Although I’m sure none of us likes house flies, let’s take a closer look and see what things the Creator has given them.
Starting from a tiny egg laid by a female fly, a white grub hatches. This grub grows rapidly, and within a few days changes to a pupa and then into an adult fly. In proportion to its size, the fly’s eyes are huge. Each eye has around 4,000 six-sided lenses to give it outstanding vision. (No wonder it’s so hard to sneak up on them!) Its body is made up of five segments and is covered on the underside with stiff hairs. These hairs are usually loaded with harmful bacteria (germs). It has six hairy legs, and if you look closely you can see a tiny claw and a sticky pad on the end of each leg. The sticky pads trap and carry more bacteria.
Did you ever wonder how a fly can walk as easily up a window as on a flat surface? or how it can walk upside down on the ceiling? The claws help it grip on smooth surfaces, and the pads are coated with a sticky fluid that enable it to climb or walk upside down without difficulty.
Then there are the amazing, balanced, transparent wings that move 330 times a second. As the wings move, rod-like structures, called halteres, vibrate at the same rate to give the fly its sense of balance. More than one-tenth of the fly’s weight is in the muscles that control its wings.
The house fly multiplies rapidly. During her short two-week lifetime, each female will lay six clusters of 100150 eggs. If every egg became an adult fly and none were destroyed, it has been calculated that within four months the descendants of a single pair would cover the earth. But God does not allow them to reach so great a number, keeping them under control with many enemies. In addition to people who use insecticides or swat them with fly swatters, they have many other enemies. Spiders, hornets, frogs, birds, mites and parasites also help keep them under control.
When the Lord God created the first flies they were in no way harmful. But when sin came into the world, He allowed them to have their present bad habits as a reminder that “the wages of sin is death,” and they became one of the ways by which death-resulting diseases are spread. In a future time everything will be restored to order again, and these insects will no longer be harmful. That time will be after the Lord Jesus takes all who love Him into heaven.
Yes, even the house fly is under the Creator’s control and shows again how wonderfully He has made every creature. Actually, every boy and girl is a much greater marvel of His creation. The psalmist said, “I will praise Thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are Thy works” (Psalm 139:14). He has not only made us His most important creation, but He wants us to know His great love. Have you responded to the invitation, “O taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8)?
DECEMBER 29, 1996
“Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.” Proverbs 27:1
ML-12/29/1996
Poetry