“Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow seed nor reap the harvest nor gather the crops into barns, and yet your heavenly Father keeps feeding them. Are you not worth more than they?” (Matt. 6:26)
Godwits, elegant long-legged wading birds, fly about 11,600 kilometres, (7,200 miles), between Alaska and New Zealand annually. That is eight or nine days of unimaginably exhausting, uninterrupted flight. To complete this challenging and remarkable feat, they first bulk themselves up with a thick layer of fat, feeding on insects, crustaceans, and molluscs on Alaskan tidal flats. They double their body weight and reorganise their internal organs. Digestive organs like the gizzard and intestines, which are not used during the journey, shrink. Wing and heart muscles double in size, and lung capacity and haemoglobin levels in their bloodstream increase.
“Consider the ravens, for they neither sow seed nor reap the crop; they have no storehouse or barn, and yet God feeds them. How much more valuable are you than the birds!” (Luke 12:24)
Avian physiology is perfectly designed and delicately fine-tuned to accomplish this astonishing ultra ultra-marathon. It involves marvellous adaptations at the cellular chemical level, affecting the processing and transport pathways of enzymes, fatty acids, and glycerol. Despite morbid obesity and probable clinical diabetes pre-flight, they show no evidence of hypertension, heart disease, or stroke.
“Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? Yet not one of them has ever been forgotten in the presence of God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not be afraid; you are far more valuable than many sparrows.” (Luke 12: 6-7)
The godwits overcome extreme dehydration, sleep deprivation, and exhaustion. When they land in New Zealand, they regrow digestive organs and begin the binge feeding necessary to support the return journey. Nearly 10,000 kilometres (6,000 miles) to China and more organ regrowth and feeding before the final 6,400 kilometres (4,000 miles) to their breeding ground in Alaska.
Individual birds may make this journey 25 or 30 times in their lives. Breeding only happens in Alaska, and they have to be fast. The month-old chicks are abandoned as their parents take to the sky, and the juveniles respond to the inexplicable urge to binge feed and begin the extraordinary flight to…somewhere they have never visited by a route they have never travelled, learning about unihemispheric sleep while on the wing and navigating with the mind-bending form of quantum mechanics called magnetoreception.
‘Therefore, I tell you, stop being worried or anxious (perpetually uneasy, distracted) about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, as to what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?” (Matt. 6:25)
“But first and most importantly seek (aim at, strive after) His kingdom and His righteousness [His way of doing and being right – the attitude and character of God], and all these things will be given to you also.” (Matt 6: 33)
‘There are two ways to live: you can live as though nothing is a miracle; you can live as though everything is a miracle. The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.’ Albert Einstein