Every October and November the Samoan Islanders receive a supply of food from the ocean which they consider a great treat. In each of those months this food comes at sunrise, exactly one day before the last quarter of the new moon and also the following day. Just three days before this there is a great migration of land crabs marching from the mountains to the sea to spawn, so the natives have this double notice to get ready to collect this treat.
The treat is the eggs of the eighteen-inch palolo worm. They live at the bottom of the ocean, hidden in rocks and coral. At these two months of the year they back out of their burrows and break themselves in two. The hind part rises to the surface to lay great numbers of eggs, and the front part goes back to its underwater home. By the second day the whole area is afloat with these eggs. The natives eagerly collect as many of them as possible.
What an amazing performance this is! Do you think the crabs and worms are watching the moon or looking at calendars? No, they simply follow the guidance of their Creator in ways we cannot understand.
Species of the palolo worm go through similar activities in the waters around Japan, the Fiji Islands, the Gulf of Mexico and other places in the Pacific. Some are active at the same time as those near the Samoan Islands, but many are active at different times of the year.
How do these interesting residents of the ocean know just the right days to make an appearance? What controls them so that they all leave their nests at the same time? It is God who has given them the instinct and living patterns suited exactly to their needs. That is why they know the exact hours and days to leave their underwater homes. The Lord God, who "upholds all things by the Word of His power," watches over them with real care to see that they carry out their appointed role among His created things.
If the Lord of all creation cares for the palolo worm, we know He cares much more for us. Have we not proved that "His compassions fail not. They are new every morning"? Lam. 3:22,2322It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. 23They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22‑23). But more than this-He has given mankind an everlasting soul and an invitation to spend eternity in heaven with Him.
But our sins will keep us from heaven, unless we accept the redeeming work of Christ, taking God's judgment on Himself, to account for the sins of all who trust in His shed blood. "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." 1 Peter 3:1818For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: (1 Peter 3:18). Have you admitted that you are a sinner and accepted Him as your own Savior?