The woodpecker is just one of God’s unique and glorious creatures. It is common knowledge that woodpeckers peck in order to get bugs living in the bark of trees. They also peck in order to make a nest cavity for themselves, their mate and their young. The pecking sometimes is used to communicate as part of their courtship rituals.
Some unusual facts about the woodpecker is that while most birds have one toe pointing back and three pointing forward on each foot, woodpeckers have two sharply clawed toes pointing in each direction to help them grasp the sides of trees and balance while they hammer. Woodpeckers tap an estimated 8,000-12,000 times per day, an estimated 20 pecks per second.
Even more unusual facts are that woodpeckers have tongues (type of a bone/muscle) that begin in their skull. The tongue starts in the brain where these muscles run over the brain, around the side of the head, under the lower jaw, and into the mouth, where the two bones meet to form the tongue. It wraps around the entire brain to prevent damage when pecking. However, only about four inches (with a glue-like substance on the tip for catching insects) comes out of the beak.
Why am I telling you about woodpeckers and what do they have to do with scripture? I will get to that soon.
What brought this up is that almost every morning for the past two months I have been awakened about six am. My alarm clock is a weird woodpecker that tries to get his morning meal by attacking and pecking at a steel utility pole instead of a tree. He seems to do this for about an hour and then leaves only to return the next day or so to try again.
I find this behavior as an educational moment for me. I commend the woodpecker for his determination and persistence to get the job done and not give up, but it also makes me wonder about his upbringing? Did his parents not teach him the difference between wood and steel? Or did they try to teach him but he was too stubborn, headstrong and would not listen to wise counsel? Whatever the reason, pecking on that steel pole was not going to get him his desired results – a meal or a nest. No matter his intentions, determination and persistence while noble, they were in vain.
God has provided the woodpecker with all he (and she) needs in order to live a full life and succeed at the tasks before them. They have parents, trees, bugs and a mate. And that scenario is pretty much like our own.
God has provided us with all we need to succeed in having salvation and a life lived in His ways. He gave us His Son who taught us the ways of life that would bring us peace, joy, adoption into His family and eternal Salvation if we would believe and accept Him as our Lord and Savior. Like the adolescent woodpecker we have a choice. We can listen, believe, and accept the wise words from our eternal Father and live the life He has
planned for us or we can be headstrong, self reliant and try to do it our way.
But unlike the woodpecker, which will just die and turn to dust, we will spend eternity in hell if we do not accept Jesus, become a new creation and be obedient to His Word.
So, for those believers that are reading this article may I suggest that you read and ponder 2 Corinthians 13:5? “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?”
If you have not yet put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus and reading this article, may I suggest you read and ponder the following Scriptures? Jesus is ready and willing to cleanse you of your sins and welcome you into Salvation, if you will accept and believe in Him.
First, God tells us:
John 3:16, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Then we are reminded:
Romans 10:9-10, 9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.
We will also want to follow the greatest commandments:
Luke 10:27, He answered: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ “
If you truly believe then you are a new person:
2 Corinthians 5:17, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
As A Christian you must remember
Ephesians 2:8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
1 Cor.15:2, By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
Manos de Dios, Hands of God Ministries 