The European white stork has black wing tips, a red bill and long, reddish-pink legs and feet. Storks have no real vocal cords, so they “talk” by clapping their bills together. Although this stork migrates every fall, a pair will return year after year to the same nest. The nests are huge, built mostly on chimney tops or roofs. Each year something is added to each nest, until they become as tall as a man and several feet wide. A pair of storks will stay together for life and are devoted to their young, feeding them great quantities of frogs, grasshoppers, mice, eels and reptiles.
Storks get along very well with humans and are protected wherever they live. Sometimes when they meet you on a street, you would think they were almost human as they stroll along, for they nod their heads like wise old men or tuck their beaks in their chests like absent-minded professors.
Before winter overtakes the storks, large migrations begin, following two southern routes. Those nesting in eastern Europe fly through Turkey, Palestine, over the Sea of Galilee, over Mt. Sinai, into East Africa and then down to South Africa. That is how they are known to the people of Bible lands, because some stop off in those lands to stay until spring. Those nesting in western Europe make their flight to the same destination, but by a different route. These fly over the Rock of Gibraltar, across the Sahara Desert and the Congo forests of Africa. They meet the eastern European storks somewhere along the Nile River and fly together to southern Africa.
These storks have an amazing characteristic: When it’s time to begin these migratory flights, the young storks begin the seven-thousand-mile journey without waiting for their parents. Although they have never flown these routes before, they have no difficulty reaching their destinations. Can anyone deny that they receive this remarkable ability from their Creator? If they were not guided by Him, certainly they would wander off course and die, but He watches over them with utmost care.
As our opening Bible verse states, “the stork in the heaven [knows] her appointed times” and will not change it. The rest of the verse is sad when the Lord says, “But My people know not the judgment of the Lord.” The people were not as wise as the birds and failed to follow the counsel of God.
How important for us all to “hear what God the Lord will speak; for He will speak peace unto His people . . . but let them not turn again to folly [sin]” (Psalm 85:88I will hear what God the Lord will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints: but let them not turn again to folly. (Psalm 85:8)). Do you know the peace of hearing His voice and applying it to your own heart?
ML-05/26/2002