[Faith-talk] Good Night Message for Thursday, April 4 2013

[Paul]

Well folks, April is almost gone from us here in the Americas, whereas you in other parts of the world are already in your Fridays, albeit very early for some of you as this is being written.  I hope that your Thursday was a good day and that your Friday will be even better, by God's matchless grace and His providential care.

Sonia A. Randall, a writer living in Oregon at the time of this writing originally, contributes today's rather short article entitled "The Zebra's Fingerprints," rendered as follows:

You know what fingerprints are--those tiny ridges and whorls on the ends of your fingers.  But did you know that God made every person in the world to have different fingerprints? Isn't that amazing?

Did you know that zebras have "fingerprints," too? Their fingerprints are very different from ours, though.  Those bold black and white stripes that cover their whole body are their "fingerprints." And, amazingly, God created every zebra to have a different pattern of stripes.

Scientists have speculated for years about why zebras have these stripes and what might be their purpose.  Some have conjectured that they are "protective covering" or a kind of camouflage to help the zebra blend into his background to hide from enemies.  This might be the case sometimes, but many zebras live in large herds in grassy areas, where a predator could hardly avoid noticing them.

Others have thought that the many stripes of a herd of zebras standing close together would be confusing to a lion or a leopard that might be looking for dinner.  This kind of camouflage that confuses a predator is called "disruptive coloring." Since lions are color-blind, the mass of black and white stripes would make it difficult for a lion to sort out an individual zebra.

More recently, scientists have thought that the striping helps zebras recognize each other.  A mother could easily find her baby in a large herd, and zebras could quickly distinguish their own herd from another herd.

Scientists who study zebras are able to identify individuals by these stripes.  But only God knows the real purpose of the striping, and so far He hasn't let mankind in on the secret.

And there you have Sonia's article for today.  You know, when God created us as individuals, not only did He give us our unique fingerprints, but also our own type of voices.  I would say that, if you heard my voice long enough or you did the same, whether in an online audio Internet chatroom or maybe over the phone long enough, we could distinguish each other's voices in a crowd of say 20 or 30 people, simply because we have become attuned to that or those voices we have heard over a certain period of time.  Anyway it's something to think about as we retired for bed or do whatever we will do immediately following the reading of this message.

And now may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, throughout this night or day and especially in these last days in which we live.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul