One of the first signs of spring throughout North America is a nighttime sound of high-pitched peeping from ponds and marshes, announcing that the little peeper frogs are coming out of their winter mud-hibernations. These peepers are less than an inch to four or five inches long and appear the first day temperatures rise to about 50 F. The males appear first, soon followed by the females that have been attracted by their pretty chorus. Tiny tadpoles soon hatch from sticky eggs laid in great numbers in shallow water. It takes these tadpoles most of the summer to change into mature frogs.
The Coqui frog of Puerto Rico is also small—less than two inches long. Only the males “sing,” but their group croakings are about as loud as a noisy motorboat. These noisy little creatures usually sleep in the daytime and come out only at night, but after a heavy rain they all come out and sing together, day or night, making a terrible racket.
Ecuador is the home of the pouched frog. The female has a pouch on her back where her male companion tucks in the dozen or more eggs she has laid. When the eggs are ready to hatch out as miniature frogs, the mother goes to a nearby pool and releases them out of her pouch by using a long toe on one of her hind feet to pull open a slit on her back. The tiny froglets, happy to leave their crowded home, hop into the pool and start life on their own. Soon they climb to the high tops of tropical trees where their bright-green bodies are well-hidden among the leaves. Some of the leaves hold little puddles of rainwater, providing the moisture all frogs must have.
Another South American species is called the poison dart, because natives use a poison found in them to make their arrows and other weapons more effective. The eggs of these frogs are laid on watery ground, and when these little frogs hatch out, the parents carry them by piggyback to plants growing high among the treetops. Here they find necessary water, just as their cousins, the pouched frogs, do.
Not everyone likes frogs, except people who enjoy biology and perhaps young boys. But they are God’s creatures and are under His watchful care. They serve His purpose in our interesting world. We may not understand His purposes for all creatures, but we can understand a wonderful purpose He has for all boys and girls and grown-ups who love Him. He says in Romans 8:2828And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28), “All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.”
Does this verse apply to you? If you know the Lord Jesus as your Saviour, it surely does.
ML-07/18/2010