A Bird in The Hand

This past Saturday, my wife and I went with another couple from our church to a hummingbird banding, where a federally licensed individual banded the tiny bird's leg and then placed it in the hand of a registered participant.

The first tiny bird flew from the individual's hand so fast that all you saw was a blur accompanied by the characteristic hum as the minute creature sped to the top of a nearby tree.  The second little creature did not move.  He seemed to like the warmth and restful safety of the young girl's hand in which he lay.  After a bit of time, the wildlife agent doing the banding tapped the girl's hand fro under-neath and the little warm-blooded a ion took sudden flight.

There is an old saying, "A bid in the hand is worth two in the bush."  In this case, a bird in the hand is worth a pre-registration and a two-hour drive to a federal reserve.  It was amazing to to learn of the hundreds of different kinds of hummingbirds (over 350).  The range those tiny wings carries the little critter is thousands of miles.  The Ruby-throated hummingbird that we see commonly in Arkansas, has a single leg of its migration over the Gulf of Mexico, which (of course) must be flown non-stop.

The variations in species, habitat, mating practices, coverage range, etc., are absolutely mind-boggling.  And we are only considering the hummingbird.  I cannot begin to imagine the variations of the 9,956 total bird species, let alone the 950,000 species of insects.  Are you getting the feeling that the world is complex and highly engineered?  It's almost as if there is so much intricate design on planet earth, multiplied by the trillions across the universe, that there must be a Designer.

Actually, it is precisely like that: "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands" (Ps 19:1).  Everywhere we look, we see design not disorder - this world and our universe respond to laws set in motion  to maintain that order.  There is noting about the cosmos that speaks of the chaos, disorder and pure chance of general evolutionary theory (yes evolution is just a theory). By the way, the very name "cosmos" is defined as "the universe seen as a well-ordered whole."

Imagine that, a tiny bird in the hand reflected the complexity and order of an entire universe as designed and ordered by the Great Designer himself: Almighty God!  Jus' Say'n.