Noah’s dove had no difficulty finding her way back to the ark. This is a little example of the billions of birds which migrate over vast oceans and lands throughout the world each year. One, the blackpoll warbler, travels a 4000-mile journey between the forests of North America and Brazil. One part of this trip is an 86-hour, nonstop flight over water! The golden plover travels 15,000 miles or more each year, and the bobolink travels some 6000 miles between Canada and Argentina.
What makes them migrate? For one thing, they need a place with long days and enough food to raise their young. Both of these are found in the North where trillions of insects hatch just as the birds arrive in spring. The Creator has arranged this, providing them with needed food and at the same time controlling the insects that otherwise would destroy the land. Then, aware that winter is coming, the migrators time their flights south to escape the cold of winter. Birds are the best forecasters on earth and can tell weather changes long before men can.
Young birds seldom fly with their parents. It is amazing how they can accurately fly to their destinations without help from their parents! Only God could give them this ability.
It is not only in the migration along their normal routes that their instincts are revealed. Experiments with birds removed from their normal surroundings and set free elsewhere have amazing results.
A number of shearwaters were taken in covered cages from the coast of Wales to both Italy and Switzerland. Although they are water birds and not used to flying over land, when released, these birds rose high in the air, crossed the Alps and flew straight back home. A cowbird from Illinois was taken to Colorado and released. A month later it was back home. This same bird was later taken to Quebec and promptly found its way back. In another experiment a bobolink was taken from North Dakota to California. It escaped and was soon back in North Dakota.
Eggs of many birds have been incubated hundreds of miles from their native lands. When the young birds are released at migrating times, where do you think they go? They always fly to the home of their parents rather than with the birds with which they have been raised. There they join their true relatives in their migration route established for them by their Creator. These experiments confirm that birds have God-given abilities to find their way, even when taken to strange surroundings.
The love of God points a way for us too - the way to heaven. The Bible tells us, “Broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction . . . [but] strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life” (Matthew 7:13-1413Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. (Matthew 7:13‑14)). The Lord Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:66Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (John 14:6)). Have you put your trust in Him as your sure way to heaven?
APRIL 21, 1996
ML-04/21/1996