Suppose you were given the responsibility of designing the ultimate flying machine: It must be capable of flying backward as well as forward, and be able to fly straight up or straight down with equal facility. It must also be able to hover motionlessly in mid-air.
Such an assignment would be quite a task, wouldn’t it? But, if one were a top-notch aeronautical engineer, perhaps he could design such a machine – though no one has ever done so yet.
But suppose, in addition, that this flying machine must not weigh more than one-tenth of an ounce (3 grams), and that it must be capable of flying more than 500 miles non-stop without additional fuel capacity. One would have to declare the task utterly impossible! And so it is, for man.
But there actually is such a marvelous flying machine, and it has been in existence for thousands of years. It is the hummingbird – so called for the hum its wings produce as they beat approximately 70 times each second.
There are about 320 different species of hummingbirds, which are native only to the Western Hemisphere. They range in size from the “giant” hummingbird (Patagona gigas) of South America, which weighs two-thirds of an once (20 grams), down to the “bee” hummingbird of Cuba and the Isle of Pines, which weighs only one-fifteenth of an ounce (2 grams) at maturity. If you could capture and hold 240 of these at one time, you would have barely a pound of hummingbirds.
Despite their diminutive size, some hummingbirds migrate as far as 2,000 miles each spring and autumn. The Ruby Throated hummingbird nests in Southern Canada and winters in Central America, as far south as Panama. Some of them fly non-stop for 500 miles across the Gulf of Mexico – a fantastic distance for a tiny creature hardly more than two inches long!
Hummingbirds fuel their furious activity by dining upon the nectar of flowers; and in return they pollinate the generous hosts as they dart from flower to flower.
(This reciprocal arrangement is typical of nature’s Architect. The grand design of nature features countless examples of plants and animals unconsciously working together in various combinations to achieve a precious balance, in which each species is allowed to propagate itself, but none is allowed to multiply out of control. The unthinking tinkering of man sometimes upsets this balance, with catastrophic results!)
Who is the Master Designer? Some would have us imagine that each plant and animal designed itself – but his is a manifest absurdity. The hummingbird is a living proof of this: It must have nectar regularly, or starve. Thus it has to migrate with the changing seasons; yet it could not do so unless every part of its body functioned perfectly from the beginning just as it does now. As we probe the hummingbird’s secrets, we discover the Creator’s signature in living flesh.
Job knew this, nearly four thousand years ago: “But ask the animals, now, and they shall teach you; the birds of the sky, and they shall tell you. Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach you. The fish of the sea shall declare to you. Who doesn’t know that in all these, the hand of Yahweh has done this, in whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind?” (Job 12:7-10)
Indeed, God is not only the Creator of all life; He also holds the breath of all mankind in His hand, and it is to Him that we owe life itself, for that life comes from Him. Let us rejoice in His goodness, and seek Him as a Father!
(All Scripture is quoted from the World English Bible translation.)