With gas prices at an all time high, I try not to take unnecessary trips or waste it in any way. Even when I fill my lawn mower from a wee 5 liter tank I make sure not a drop gets spilled. To make extra sure of my thriftiness, I use a funnel when filling up. As a further precaution, I attached the funnel to the gas tank with a piece of string, so that I never lose the thing.
Imagine my surprise then, when I tried filling my lawnmower and failed miserably. My aim was true, the funnel was firmly in place and the flexible tube thingy from the gas tank was completely within the limits of the funnel cone and I was not pouring the gas at an excessive rate. Still, with all due care and caution, the funnel filled and then overflowed before I knew what was happening.
What was happening? Why did I end up with a funnel’s worth of gas all over the ground? Simple: an insect had made a nest in the funnel’s tube. The combination of white plastic plus a white nest resulted in a perfectly camouflaged situation ready for spillage and a little embarrassment.
At first I was a little annoyed at the waste of gas and the ensuing mess. After a moment of thought, however, I was pretty darned impressed at God’s creation. My embarrassing moment was the result of nature’s tenacity and adaptability. The insect didn’t know what the funnel was for. All it knew was that it provided the optimum conditions for making a nest. Never mind that it was my carefully devised fuel saving system. That concept is totally beyond its understanding. As far as it was concerned, the funnel tube was there for its own personal use.
While this was a pretty cool, if not humbling, little lesson about how hard nature tries to survive and get ahead, it also serves as a reminder of how we humans sometimes miss the big picture. We can excuse whatever insect made its nest in my funnel. It knows nothing of plastic tools, being economical or fluid dynamics. It just knows what helps it survive or reproduce. We, on the other hand, know better.
At least we should. It’s not as if God is exactly quiet about things. He’s sent us all kinds of representatives about His plans and intentions for us. He’s offered us His message in written form. He even sent Jesus just to make things absolutely clear to us. Yet we still fail to get the point. We fail to understand why we’re here or what we’re meant for.
Of course, an insect could never understand the concepts we can. So while its options are limited, ours are not. We have the capacity to understand our creator and our place in creation. Best of all, we have the ability to not only know about God’s love for us, but to feel it and to share it. All we have to do is to be aware of our surroundings, to realize that we are indeed part of God’s creation, and more importantly, His own beloved children.
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