Ostrich Brains

Today I took my family to the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, NE. It is one of our favorite things to do as a family. You have never truly been to a zoo before you have seen it through the eyes of a child. Adison is at the perfect age. He gives us a list of things to see each time and wide-eyed he studies the animals.

This trip it was all about peacocks, monkeys, clown fish (Finding Nemo's influence), jaguars and elephants. We marched all the way across the zoo to stand for ten minutes and watch two elderly pachyderms standing straight and still. If it weren't for an occasional dust blow from their trunks they could have been statues.

On the way back across the zoo, I overheard a tour guide on one of those motorized trams. He was driving a glorified tractor and pulled four carts with about a dozen people on it. As he rounded the bend I heard him say, "On your left is the ostrich enclosure. The ostrich is the largest bird and is flightless. These birds have long, skinny necks and enormous eyes atop their tiny heads. Unfortunately for the ostrich its brain is smaller than one of its own eyes."

I thought about that for a while... Unfortunately for the ostrich? Really? Are they truly unfortunate to be made the way they are? I thought... surely God made them perfect and right! Surely their brains were made the way they were for a wonderful and glorious reason.

So I began to ponder... Why would a flightless bird need a bigger brain? What advanced functions do they need to do on the plains? As long as they can identify food and run away from danger then they are golden!

Then it dawned on me... God did make them right and wonderful. So I hollered back at the tram, now just rounding the bend, "Fortunately for the ostrich, God made its brain small so its long, skinny neck wouldn’t snap under the extra weight!"

Some times we are like that tram driver. We question God's design. We wonder, "God, why didn't you make me smarter, or stronger or taller. I see teenage girls asking God why He didn't make them thinner or bigger busted or smaller busted or blonde or darker skinned or lighter skinned. The whole time that we question His plan and we covet what those around us have... or the images that are placed before us on TV and in magazines... we rob ourselves of the perfection that God Himself has worked into us. Do we ever stop and ask, "GOD, why did you make me this way? What was Your reason? How can I use this body and these gifts to bring glory to Your name?"

When we stop wishing we were different and start working to maximize ourselves through Jesus Christ... then miracles happen.

God, thank you for making the ostrich and me just the way we are. AMEN!