All Things Great and Small .....

As a child, I would often follow my mother to the wet market. I was often curious about the sea-cucumber. As the name suggests, I have thought that the sea-cucumber is some kind of vegetable. It was only when I chanced to read an article and realised that the sea-cucumber is actually a sea creature!

I was even more fascinated when I learnt that when the sea cucumber is attacked, an extraordinary thing will happen; a stream of fine sticky threads will come shooting out of the end of the sea-cucumber. The potential predator will have a tough time trying to disentangle itself from the sticky mess as the sea cucumber crawls away.

"What would the sea-cucumber do if it is further pursued by its enemy?" I asked my students.
I posed this question to all my students during the past ten years when I was a teacher. Each student was given ten chances to guess at the answers. "It buries itself in the sand", a student volunteered. "It camouflages itself", someone suggested. "Ah, I know! The sea cucumber did a kung-fu stunt, shocking its predator!" volunteered the class clown.

During all those ten years of teaching, and after almost 24,000 guesses, there was not one correct answer. When the sea cucumber finds no way of escape, it will do something very drastic - it will throw up its entire digestive system.! While the predator focuses on the yummy bits thrown up with the stomach, the sea cucumber will take the opportunity to crawl away.
Meanwhile its entire digestive tract will regrow over the next couple of months!

Wow How brilliant is the Creator! Wouldn't it be wonderful if that could happen to us human beings? No one would need to go for expensive heart, lung or stomach surgery. We could just eject all the diseased organs and grow new one! (Surgeons would definitely go out of business then!) Ah! Wiat a minute! Probably the sea cucmber is endowed with such a unique feature of survival instinct, because it can only crawl and not swim swiftly like a dolphin! If God could take care of small little creatures like sparrows and sea cucumbers, how much more would He take care of us! Are we not His highest form of creation? Haven't many of us been miraculously healed of terminal diseases, blindness, etc. Hasn't the Lord healed me of my stone deafness? All we have to do is to have complete faith in Him for has God not reminded us that we are to seek His Kingdom first and He will grant us our hearts' desires?

How assuring when we read Psalms Chap 8 vs. 3-6:

When I look at the sky, which you have made,
at the moon and the stars, which you have
set in their places -
what is man, that you think of him;
mere man, that you care for him?

Yet, you made him inferior only to yourself;
you crowned him with glory and honour.
You appointed him ruler over everything you made.

Whenever I try to share about Creation, many non-Christians often challenged me with this
question, "Have you seen God personall y?" "Yes, I have; in my simplicity I find it easier to
believe that this beautiful world with all its contents, have been created by one great, omnipotent God, and I see Him in the perfect handiworkds He has generously created for us
to enjoy.

Gan Chau