Discovering Endless Surprises in God’s Creation
Webster’s dictionary defines the word “surprise” as a “feeling of wonder or astonishment.”1
How about the endless surprises in God’s creation?
There’s so much to discover!
You could spend hours learning about the amazing animals inhabiting our planet.
Take the Long-wattled Umbrellabird, for example.
The Long-wattled Umbrellabird2
Personally, I’ve had interesting hairdos before, but this little guy takes the cake.
Is anyone else seeing an Elvis impersonator here?
Besides the little pompadour “umbrella” on the bird’s head, they also sport a feather-duster-like waddle from their necks.
Quite the unique-looking bird.
Don’t tell me that God does not have a sense of humor.
Found in some of the humid regions of South America, the Umbrellabird enjoys eating fruit and the occasional lizard.
I delight in God’s creation, don’t you?
The oceans teem with life; the forests are full of His creatures; pastures and mountains are the habitations for His handiwork. Storks among the firs, badgers among the rocks, young lions in the bush, and goats in the mountains (Psalm 104:17-22)—all these things silently testify to the wonders of God’s creative mind, the glory of His wondrous skills, and the beauty of all that He has made. – Stuart Briscoe, Author and Bible Teacher.3
Each and every creature, every plant, every inch of land, and every depth of the seas – all tell a unique story of God’s perfectly-created design.
And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. – Genesis 1:31, (NASB).4
God’s Extraordinary Creation and its Endless Surprises
As humans, we can barely comprehend the complexities of our world.
We’re constantly discovering and learning new things.
And, the more we learn, the more we realize just how marvelous God’s creation and its endless surprises really are.
Evolutionary philosophy holds that ingenious biological features were invented by the unknowing, uncaring, purposeless laws of nature, but it is clear that they were instead engineered by our wise, benevolent, and powerful Creator. Nature has never been observed inventing these kinds of complex structures, each well-suited to its task, and there is not even a theoretical, realistic step-by-step evolutionary explanation for how they could have developed. Thus, in the same way that we infer a painter from a painting, or an engineer from an engine, we infer a Creator from a creation. – The Institute for Creation Research.5
Every living thing, no matter how insignificant it may seem, has a part to play in God’s grand design.
Thank You God for all that You do and for all that You have done.
The fact that we are living witnesses to His works is extremely humbling.
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1 “Surprise”. (n.d.). In Websters1913.com. Retrieved from Websters 1913 Dictionary
2 “Cotingidae – Cephalopterus penduliger” photo by Hectonichus, own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. 15 September, 2010. Accessed and retrieved January 27, 2024.
3Stuart Briscoe quotation courtesy of TellingTheTruth.org. From “Everything Beautiful.” n.d., Web. 26 November, 2023. Accessed January 29, 2024. Retrieved from https://www.tellingthetruth.org/read/individual-post/read/2023/11/26/everything-beautiful
4Scripture quotation is from the New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation
5Quotation courtesy of The Institute For Creation Research. From “God’s Design is an Engineering Wonder”, n.d., Web. Accessed 27th January, 2024. Retrieved from God’s Design.