Seeds For Thinking	Archives Index	Illustrated Index	Bookmarks	Cards	Education
About	Subscribe	Please Share	Links

Scripture: Job said, “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.” Job 42:3b, NIV

    Bird Brain!  Perhaps you’ve heard that epithet used as a putdown for someone who did something a little bit stupid. Lacking in thinking power; a few bricks shy of a full load. Fewer brains than God gave a goose!
    Now I’ve noticed a number of birds this past week, which started me thinking about real bird brains, and I am impressed! Capo the Rooster provided the initial inspiration, as I watched him fly/jump up on a hay manger in the barn, walk along the narrow board like a tight-rope walker, and jump down where he spotted a grain of corn on the ground. All of that activity took quite a bit of coordination and balance. Granted, Capo can’t read, but let’s see you jump up three feet from a flat-footed start, land on a board one-half inch wide, and walk the length of it without falling off. You’ve got two feet, just like he does.
    I watched a goose pass over my head, glide toward the surface of our pond, and perform a perfect landing a few feet from the bank, in the midst of several other geese. God did indeed endow geese with a flight controller system that works quite well. Sometimes we can’t find our car in a parking lot, but many birds fly thousands of miles during migration, and can return to the same nesting or feeding grounds year after year. So what if they can’t read a map?
    A crow picked up something from the field I was mowing, and flew off with it. Food for little ones? I don’t know, for I couldn’t follow. Crows manage to feed themselves year ‘round, and have quite a varied diet. I watched as a crow fluttered toward a landing in the thin, top branches of an apple tree. “Too small,” I thought. “Those little branches won’t support you.” But they did. And the crow sat there, bobbing and weaving in the breeze, probably smirking.
    We humans sometimes become so self-impressed with our attributes that we had no part in creating that we forget the role of the One who created all things.
    Like Job, we sometimes get a lesson in humility from observing God’s creation. One of the wonders of the universe has to be the brain, bird size or otherwise. As the Bible admonishes in Proverbs, “Go to the ant, thou sluggard. Learn her ways and be wise.”
    Take time to read God’s reply to Job, chapters 38 through 41. God begins by asking, “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations? Tell me, if you understand.”
The ostrich and the stork are endowed with quite  different  traits   (39:13-18);  and  God asks, “Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom and spread his wings toward the south? Does the eagle soar at your command and build his nest on high?”
    Yes, we need on occasion to reflect on God’s greatness, and respond as did Job, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” Job 42:5-6
May 25, 2003

Seeds For Thinking	Archives Index	Illustrated Index	Bookmarks	Cards	Education
About	Subscribe	Please Share	Links

Seeds For Thinking Title and Logo  © Copyright 1996 by Leland Hubbell