The Guests

I am a big fan of the GPS (Global Positioning System) in the car which tells me how to go from my present to my future.  It is really pretty amazing technology!  While it a relatively new technology, it has been around since Genesis.  I was reminded of this in the last few days as Monarch Butterflies flit and flirt with each other here on the Zinnia on the edge of the front porch.  Not having seen them around these parts, I was surprised and delighted with these unexpected guests.  As best I can figure it, they are on their way south for the winter. 

 

A book I read recently by Barbara Kingsolver entitled "Flight Behavior" taught me a lot about these beautiful winged guests.  Like Canadian Geese, salmon, river shad, and some birds, Monarchs are migratory creatures.  This means they have a GPS bred into them from the very beginning.  But, to be fair, it should be called "God's Positioning System" instead of the term we use for GPS.  As I watched them today feeding and flying I realized that this GPS thing has been around a long time.  Humanity has only in recent years figured it out.  God has known how to do it all along. 

 

But, then, there is no real surprise here.  When we talk about our ability to develop and use new technologies, new cures for unmanageable diseases, and mastering the art of space travel to distant planets, we are only talking about learning something which is built into the very fabric of the created order.  Learning to fly is a relatively new thing for humanity when we realize that God has had creatures flying since the beginning.  The cure we seek for cancer and other diseases is out there, not because we are so smart, but because God has created a universe where such know-how already exists.  What God has already put in place, He is waiting on us to find.  It is all there.  Since the beginning it has all been there.  It is there not by chance, but because a loving God has put it there for us.