On God and Chipmunks
March 17, 2007
|
Posted by Ray Fowler
We have a family of chipmunks who live in the bush just outside our back window. We enjoy watching these cute little critters as they scamper around the yard and run along the top of the fence. It is especially fun to watch them play tag with the squirrels underneath the bird feeder. The squirrels don’t have a chance. The chipmunks can dart from here to there so fast you don’t even see them move. It is almost as if they teleport from one location to the other.
Yesterday the back yard was a flurry of activity from our chipmunk friends. All morning long they were dashing back and forth to the woods bringing back supplies. You see, we had a major snow storm coming in last night, and they were getting prepared.
Of course, the question is, how did they know the storm was coming? I only knew because of the weather station. In the meantime, while I checked hourly weather reports on TV, the chipmunks earnestly gathered their supplies.
These little chipmunks are a testimony to God’s great glory and wisdom, as are all of God’s works in creation. God is a good and loving Creator who has made all things well. I especially love Psalm 104 which speaks of God’s intimate love and care for his creation. Let me leave you with a few verses from this encouraging psalm this morning:
Psalm 104:24-28
24 How many are your works, O LORD!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
25 There is the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with creatures beyond number —
living things both large and small.
26 There the ships go to and fro,
and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.27 These all look to you
to give them their food at the proper time.
28 When you give it to them,
they gather it up;
when you open your hand,
they are satisfied with good things. (NIV)
Categories: Animals, God, Psalms
|
Leave a reply
Hey Pastor Ray, I just wanted to comment on that verse.
“26 There the ships go to and fro,
and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.”
It’s mostly on the leviathan, a creature unknown to a lot of our minds this day in age. I’m not completely sure but I take the leviathan as possibly a dinosaur that lived that day in age.
What are your thoughts on this one?
Wow, from chipmunks to leviathan in a single post!
Great question Tim,
The leviathan shows up several times in Scripture (Job 3:8, 41.1; Psalm 74:14, 104:26; Isaiah 27:1). The word itself seems to refer to any large water creature.
In Psalm 104 it probably refers to the whale. The references in Job most likely refer to the Nile crocodile. Psalm 74:14 and Isaiah 27:1 both use the word symbolically to speak of God’s enemies. Psalm 74 speaks of “the heads of Leviathan,” and so probably refers poetically to the mythological seven-headed sea serpent. In Isaiah Leviathan represents the nations that stand against God and God’s people. Perhaps Leviathan on some level also represents God’s great enemy, “the great dragon . . . that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.” (Revelation 12:9).
So, as a large water creature, it is possible that leviathan could refer to a pleiosaurus or some such creature. But I think the possibilites I have listed above are more likely.