Daily Devotional – December 7

Biology

Have you considered the giraffe’s tongue? This 18-inch-long tongue is so agile that it is able to flick individual ants from an acacia tree leaf. Acacia leaves are the giraffe’s main food, but stinging, biting ants that live on the acacia tree try to stop the giraffe from eating the leaves. Giraffes are large animals that can reach 18 feet in height, and it takes lots of food to keep this animal alive. A giraffe can eat up to 75 pounds of acacia leaves in a single day. But biting ants aren’t the only hazard with which the giraffe has to deal. Acacia trees have thorns or spikes - many longer than one of your fingers! What if one of these spikes happens to get in with the leaves and is swallowed? You can imagine a fish bone stuck in your throat; now imagine a 4-inch-long thorn stuck in the ten-foot-long throat of a giraffe!

The giraffe’s Creator has taken care of that by designing thick saliva to cover the spike - allowing it to slide down the throat without getting stuck. The thorns are coated so thickly that they exit the giraffe in the same condition they entered without any harm to the digestive system. This thick saliva had to be present from the beginning, or the first giraffes would have gotten thorns stuck in their throats – driving them to extinction. Evolution would have us believe that this thick saliva happened by accident and chance over millions of years. If this is true, would we have any giraffes left? God knew what giraffes would experience and provided the solution. If God cares about a giraffe’s saliva, think how much more He cares for you.

With him is wisdom and strength, he hath counsel and understanding.

~ Job 12:13

Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett