Even though lizards were called unclean in the Bible, God still cares for them. Let’s see how He cares for two of them.
The shovel-snouted lizard lives on the hot, sandy Namib Desert in Africa. This lizard has been given long legs to cope with its hot, sandy environment — far too hot for people to walk on barefoot.
Moving about in such intense heat as it searches for insects, the shovel-snouted lizard’s long legs carry its body high enough so it doesn’t rub its belly against the hot sand. When its feet get too hot, it uses its tail for balance and lifts two legs at a time on a diagonal across its body for a few seconds, puts them down and switches to the other two.
If it gets too hot to stay in the heat, this little lizard has an impressive way to escape. It dives into the sand and “swims” down, down, down ... to where the sand can be up to 50 degrees cooler. It can breathe just fine down there because a sand dune is made up of about one-third air. It might stay comfortably in this coolness for up to 24 hours.
Many mornings, very heavy fog blows in from the ocean. The Creator provides in this way for our lizard friend to collect water to fill up a special water bladder He provided for it.
Another unusual lizard, the leaf-tailed gecko, only makes its home on Madagascar Island and surrounding islands off the coast of Africa. It waits for its prey on the side of a tree with its head facing down. It might look like a difficult position to hang onto, but the Lord has given it toes with suction cups so it can cling to the side of the tree very easily.
One way it protects itself from enemies is that it can drop its tail. Then the enemy might go after the tail instead of the lizard, and the tail grows back in a short time. Other times, it opens its mouth wide, revealing some bright colors in its mouth, while throwing its tail up over its back. It can also scream, with a sound like a small child screaming. These things hopefully send an enemy running the other way!
As we see in our opening verse, lizards were considered unclean in the Bible. This is partly because their feet don’t provide protection from the dirt and germs of the ground. As Christians, we are called to walk in separation from the things of this world because they aren’t holy like God is, and they will end up making us “dirty” in our hearts. God has provided wonderful, clean things for us to enjoy, and He has given us a nature that appreciates and loves those things. May we walk according to that nature!
Messages of God’s Love 4/9/2023