The Wonders of God’s Creation
The European White Stork, with black wing tips, a red bill and long, red legs, has a striking appearance. Although it migrates every fall, Europe is its real home, where it makes a permanent nest and raises its young. The nests are huge, built on top of chimneys, roofs, or other parts of buildings. Each year, something is added, until they become as tall as a man and as wide as a dining-room table.
Parent birds stay together for a lifetime and are devoted to their little ones, feeding them great quantities of frogs, grasshoppers, mice, etc. On hot days, the parents bring water in their clappers to give the babies a cool drink. They have no real vocal cords, so “talk” by clapping their bills together. But it is easy to tell when they are angry, sad or just expressing pleasant things, by the way they use these clappers. They get along very well with humans and are protected wherever they live. Sometimes they will meet you strolling down a lane. You would think they were almost human, as they nod their heads like wise old men, or tuck their beaks in their chest like absent-minded professors as they stroll along.
Before winter overtakes them, large migrations start. Two routes south are followed: those nesting in Eastern Europe use one that takes them through Turkey, Palestine, over the Sea of Galilee, over Mt. Sinai, into East Africa and then down to South Africa. That is how they are known to the people of Bible lands, because some stop off to stay in that country until springtime. Another group, from Western Europe, make their flight to the same destination, but by a different course, flying over the Rock of Gibraltar, across the Sahara Desert and Congo forests of Africa, to meet the others somewhere along the Nile River and fly with them to the south of that big continent.
But here is the amazing thing: When the urge to make these flights begins to stir them, the little ones start on the 7,000-mile journey without waiting for their parents, who join them later! Although they have never flown these routes before, they have no difficulty reaching their destinations. Can anyone deny that they receive this remarkable ability from their Creator? If they were not guided by Him, certainly they would wander off course and die, but He watches over them with the utmost care.
As our opening scripture states, “the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed time” and will not change it. The rest of the verse is sad when the Lord says, “but My people know not the judgment of the Lord.” The people were not as wise as the birds and failed to follow the counsel of God.
How important for us all to “hear what God the Lord will speak: for He will speak peace unto His people... but let them not turn again to folly (sin).” Psalms 85:88I will hear what God the Lord will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints: but let them not turn again to folly. (Psalm 85:8). Do you know the peace of hearing His voice and applying it to your own heart?
ML-10/11/1981