Speedy Feet And Herculean Leaps!
When a lizard is running along the side of a cement retaining wall and jumps to a patch of sand and keeps zipping along, his tiny brain is monitoring the surface its feet are hitting. It is adjusting pressure with every step. If he puts too much pressure on a foot, the foot will sink in the sand and he will bog down. But he doesn’t.
Robotic rovers for disaster relief and trips to Mars are overwhelmed with this problem. Instant varying of interactions with contact points to handle rapidly changing surfaces. Yet, a baby lizard the size of one of the digits of your fingers zips along effortlessly.
When a baby praying mantis makes the herculean leap of one inch from a tiny branch to another, it does a seven-step gymnastic move, each timed to the thousandths of a second. It will, for one move, twist its upper torso 37º to the left for 5 thousandths of a second followed by the exact movements of another part of its body in exact degrees in precise time also. And so it does for all seven movements.
Malcom Burrows of Cambridge University discovered this in 2015. He became the world’s leading expert in insect kinesthetics (movements). To his astonishment, he found that the tiny mantis would adjust each of his leaping twists by microseconds to adjust for a shorter jump of 3/4ths of an inch and to adjust to longer times for longer leaps.
As he continued his research, he began to realize that there are mathematical algorithms (formulas) built into the insect’s DNA that determine the angles of the leaping twist movements and the exact speed its muscles are to make them happen–and they adjust precisely for different length jumps! All so baby manis can make his baby leaps and land just right!
God intimately knows the timing of baby mantis’ jumps and the pressures of baby lizards’ feet. How much more does He understand the precise needs of timings in our lives and the exact amount of push certain things need!
Release long-standing problems again today to the Maker of the stars and of the little baby mantis’s and baby lizards. Cast what’s hanging tightly to your heart to Him; God is very mindful of you. Your timings are in His plans. Re-place all in His “I have this!” and be faithful in the important little acts of labors and love and kindness and consideration God has for you in this coming day.
God Himself will make you quite happily “shout in the morning”–as Psalms say it– as you see the immense wisdom of His choices–both in how He maneuvers things AND in the wonderfulness of His thoughtful timings
“My times are in Your hands.” - Psalms 31:15
Wow! What a gift it is to have God time the events of our lives in excellent ways!
Don Miller
“For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” - Psalms 30:5
“For You, Lord, have made me joyful by what You have done, I will sing for joy over the works of Your hands.” - Psalms 92:4
What a blessing it is when God works!
Don Miller