MIRACLES BY DESIGN: Check Out This Mama Bird and Her Umbrella
(FOUR-MINUTE READ) — Most bird mamas use their wings to cover their chicks for a variety of reasons, including keeping the little ones warm, protecting them from predators and ensuring they get the rest their rapidly developing bodies require for proper growth.
Mama protects her chicks from the rain.
It’s also not uncommon for mama birds to use their wings to shield their chicks from things like rain, as in the accompanying photo.
I’m not an ornithologist, so I can’t tell you what species of bird this protective mama is, but here’s something important to think about as you study her:
What prompts her to spread her wings in the peculiar fashion seen in the photo? The falling rain must be the stimulus for her action, but why is that the case? I suggest her action can best be accounted for as a product of Intelligent Design.
Why? First, because evolutionary theory contends that all features of a creature evolve over time because, through the process of natural selection, retaining a particular feature assures the survival and reproductive success of the creature.
So, here’s my question:
Spreading her wings over her new-born chicks to protect them from the rain helps ensure the chicks’ survival, but how does doing so contribute to her survival? I’m not saying there cannot be a reasonable explanation of this action that is consistent with natural selection, but I’ve yet to encounter it.
Put another way, she doesn’t spread her wings as seen in the photo because, thanks to eons of natural selection, she knows doing so helps keep her alive, or that protecting her chicks helps ensure the continuation of her species. Birds do not “know” in that sense of conscious awareness, do they?
The more logical explanation to me is that the mama bird does this because she is a product of intentional construction, or Intelligent Design. There is a discernible order or pattern in her physical characteristics that, among much else, enables and prompts her to spread her wings as an umbrella. That stimulus to do so in a particular circumstance requires a designer.
And who is that designer? Here’s how the John puts it in the first three verses of the Gospel bearing his name:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through Him, and apart from Him not one thing was created that has been created.”
And Paul explains it in his letter to the Colossians at verse 1:16 in these words:
“For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on Earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through Him and for Him.”
John spent three years in the company of Jesus and witnessed during that time His miracles, His crucifixion and, most important, His resurrection from the tomb that demonstrated His divinity for the whole world to see.
Paul’s personal encounter with Jesus was much shorter, consuming a few minutes on the road to Damascus. But that world-changing meeting transformed Paul from an enemy of Christ to His greatest missionary.
I suggest the most logical conclusion here is that Jesus created that Mama bird just as He created you, me, the Earth and indeed the entire universe. He did all of that for a purpose, one part of which was to teach us using this Mama bird in a beautiful natural illustration of what His love for us looks like.
The next question is the most important one — What will you do with Jesus in your life? He’s the one who said at John 14:6: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”