God's Creations

All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small,

All things wise and wonderful;

The Lord God made them all. —Alexander

Each evening before I get home from work, I make a promise to take each of my own cats into my arms and snuggle with them, and to give them playtime.  And each evening after I get home, I don’t do that.  So in the morning, I try to take one or two into my arms and give them a good snuggle and a talk.  I shower them with kisses on their nose, their bellies, and sniff their breath.  I know that sounds weird, but they all have their own scents, some sweet, some not so sweet, but its what makes them unique to each other.  Sure, they are all cats, sure, they are all fluffy, sure, they all have appetites and sure, they all have very sharp claws that get me at least once every two weeks when I am not being careful, but they are all loving in their own way, and crave affection from me every day.  I have to make the little time they have on this earth as happy as can be.  My oldest cat, Inky, lived until he was 18, so maybe it doesn’t seem like a small amount of time they have, but to them it is.  They age so fast.  I look at the three kittens I am ‘fostering’ right now, and they are kittens for such a short time.  Then they are young children, then teenagers, then young adults, then adults.  All within a span of a year!

Then I go on my route in the morning and see the most neediest of cats ever.  Its so hard to leave them there, but I’ve trained my heart to leave it behind and forget about them for the next 23 hours after that.  I must, or I would go crazy with sadness.  Cats, dogs, birds, chickens, rabbits, squirrels, deer, they are all God’s creatures and have a right to be on this earth with humans.  I read the following passage from Our Daily Bread and I am in awe, and always will be, of  God’s creations.

Have you ever stopped to consider the amazing features God placed in the animals He created? Job did, and one of the most interesting he wrote about is the ostrich. Despite its apparent lack of good sense and its eccentric parenting skills, its offspring survive (39:13-16). And despite its membership in the bird family, it can’t fly—but it can outrun a horse (v.18).

Another remarkable creature is the bombardier beetle. This African insect shoots two common materials, hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone, from twin storage tanks in its back. Apart, these substances are harmless; together, they blind the beetle’s predators. A special nozzle inside the beetle mixes the chemicals, enabling it to bombard its foe at amazing speeds! And the little guy can rotate his “cannon” to fire in any direction.

How can this be? How is it that a rather dull-witted ostrich survives despite a seeming inability to care for its young while the bombardier beetle needs a sophisticated chemical reaction to ensure its continued presence on earth? It’s because God’s creative abilities know no boundaries. “He commanded and they were created,” the psalmist tells us (148:5). From the ostrich to the beetle, God’s creative work is clear for all to see.