“Lord, Thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is.” Acts 4:2424And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, 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 peskiest and best known is the common housefly. It has been called “the most dangerous insect in North America,” because of the germs it spreads. As unpleasant as houseflies are, let’s take a closer look at what the Creator has given them.
Starting from a tiny egg laid by a female fly, a white grub, called a maggot, hatches and grows rapidly. Within a few days it changes to a pupa and eventually into an adult fly. The housefly multiplies rapidly. During its short lifetime, a female can lay up to 500 eggs in clusters of 75-150 eggs over three to four days. If every egg became an adult fly, it has been calculated that within four months the descendants of a single pair would cover the earth. God does not allow them to do this, keeping them under control with many enemies. In addition to people using insecticides or swatting them with fly swatters, they have many other enemies. Spiders, hornets, frogs, birds, mites and parasites also help keep their numbers down.
In proportion to its size, the fly’s eyes are huge. Each eye has around 4,000 six-sided lenses that give it outstanding vision. These amazing eyes are why it can be so hard to swat one with a fly-swatter.
The fly’s six hairy legs come with a tiny claw and a sticky pad on the end of each leg. Did you ever wonder how a fly can walk up a window or how it can walk upside down on the ceiling? Its pads are coated with a sticky substance that enables it to climb or walk upside down without difficulty. The claws help it detach its foot again so it can keep moving.
Have you ever seen a fly rubbing its legs together? It senses food through the hairs on its legs, and it has to clean them occasionally so it can continue to sense food that is good to eat. The housefly cannot chew. It has a snout with tubes that act like a sponge to absorb liquid. To help it soften foods to make them edible, it has a liquid enzyme which it vomits onto food, dissolving it to make it possible to absorb. This vomit contains a lot of bacteria, which spreads illness and serious diseases. That is why you don’t want flies on your food.
Do flies do any good? Yes! They themselves are food for other creatures, such as birds and fish. They help consume rotting food and animals, actually making this world a cleaner place in some ways. They pollinate many plants, helping our food grow.
Whether they are good or bad, we should love all people. If you have someone in your life you find hard to love, ask the Lord to help you to love them as He loves them. He loves everyone, and He wants us to “increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men” (1 Thessalonians 3:1212And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you: (1 Thessalonians 3:12)).
Did You Know?
Spiders, hornets, frogs, birds, mites and parasites help keep flies’ numbers down.
Messages of God’s Love 11/5/2023