Monday, October 4, 2021

Orange Moon Monday, October 4, 2021 "Bugs? Bugs!"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…


"Bugs?  Bugs!"   

     

    When pondering insects of any and every variety, we do well to place an exclamation mark after the word, "Bug."  Yes, Bug!  Consider…

   Gears are amazing energy transmission devices, believed to have first been designed by the Chinese more than two millennia ago.  Or were they?    Allow me to introduce you to the planthopper, a tiny insect able to leap a distance one hundred times its own size.  A system of gears on two legs function to make planthopper transmission of energy incredibly efficient.  Indeed, if human beings possessed the same capability, we could traverse the length of two football fields by a single bound (the landing could be problematic!).

   "The Lord hath made all things" (Proverbs 16:4).

   Clearly, the Great Engineer designed and created gears long before human beings somehow came upon the Divinely-originated principle of energy transmission that so benefits our existence.  Insects, despite their diminutive size, all serve as engineering marvels.  Many innovations in modern technology have proceeded from structures and characteristics scientists have discovered in bugs. Oh yes,  Bugs!  Of course, we often swat them, spray them, squash them, and secure our homes against them.  Let us not, however, fail to marvel when pondering these trillions of creatures that all bear witness to the truth that somewhere, Somebody exists whose architectural, engineering, and artistic capabilities boggle by an infinite measure the cumulative imagination of every human being who has ever lived.  "Too wonderful for me!" declared the Psalmist when pondering his Lord's infinitely profound way (Psalm 139:6).

   It is too wonderful, isn't it?  We have lost a lot of wonder in our generation, for many reasons.  The world races by us, we race by it, and glories are often lost in the blur.  Our Heavenly Father well knows this trait of our flesh, and our tendency to minimize the maximum, and maximize the minimum.   He thus proclaimed long ago, "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10).  We need to much better know our tendency to miss His "wonders without number"  (Job 9:10).   Certainly, we must move, we must work, we must do.  But we also must wonder.  This requires a stillness of heart best enabled by an open Bible and prayerful response.  However, God's wonder so fills His creation that the next time a bug - Bug! - comes into view, even if he must be swatted, sprayed, squashed, or evicted from our home, a wonder presents itself to us.  Perhaps we might think to ourselves, "The Great Engineer made that.  And His design far transcends the most complex technology of any device or machine human beings have ever devised."  Yes, indeed, wonder.  Like the Psalmist, Solomon well knew this "Bug!" glory.  We close with his sense of amazement when pondering small things that bear witness to a Mind and a Heart we will never begin to fully fathom…

"Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise, which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest."
(Proverbs 6:6-8)

Weekly Memory Verse
   Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise, which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.
(Proverbs 6:6-8).










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