Why did God make some of the things that he made?  Like ticks?  And when he made them, how did he evaluate them?  How should we evaluate them?  And how should that be unpacked and applied in our everyday thinking?

Listen to what Paul said in Romans 1…

“For what can be known about God is plain to [us], because God has shown it to [us].  For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.”

According to these verses (and many others like them in the Bible), when human beings look at the world they are very much aware — at some level, anyway — of the power and the divinity of the Creator.  Now, as Paul says in the surrounding context, some of us will try very hard to suppress that awareness… but the truth of God’s power and divinity doesn’t go away just because we suppress it.  It’s a fairly stubborn truth.

Do you understand what Paul is saying here?  He’s saying that signs of the Creator’s character are literally EVERYWHERE you look.  It’s as if you and I live in a world full of billboards that are screaming at us all the time.  God is always revealing himself to us!  According to the Bible, he is constantly making himself known to us by the things he has made. 

Let’s take a difficult example… the tick.  The next time you go for a walk in the woods and you later find that this blood–sucking parasite has taken up residency somewhere on your body, take a moment before you squash it. 

Look at the tick.  Consider this billboard.  Can the Christian doctrine of creation indeed be extended to ticks?  Can I delight in the beauty of God’s creation even here?  Is this parasite really “billboarding” to me God’s glorious character, wisdom, and skill?

Well, how much do you know about ticks?  According to some scientists at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, “Ticks know everything that we know and everything we don’t know about pharmacology.”

These scientists are hoping to learn what ticks know (and what we don’t know), but right now they’re saying, “We have dissected some ten thousand ticks, but we probably still have a lifetime of work ahead of us.” Another said, “Ticks have a very ancient wisdom.”

What is it about the common tick (one of God’s most disreputable creatures) that has these scientists so amazed?  Well, think about what a tick has to do…

It has to attach itself to a host, avoid being detected by the host during its stay, disable the host’s immune system and keep the red blood cells flowing.  How in the world does it do all of that?  Answer:  there are dozens of elaborate chemical weapons in the saliva of a tick.

Before extracting the blood, the tick has to first of all inject its saliva into the wound that it has created on the host.  And that saliva does several things.  First of all, it injects a general anesthetic into the host’s system, so that it won’t feel the tick.

And then it also (somehow!) disables the host’s immune system.  Normally the host’s clotting mechanism would kick in and send a bunch of white blood cells to the invasion site and limit the amount of red blood cells the invader could extract.  But the tick is somehow able to trick the white blood cells into staying away… so that nothing interrupts its diet of red blood cells!

It’s really an incredible feat of biological engineering.  And there are scientists who are devoting their entire careers to trying to figure out and imitate the “ancient wisdom” of the common tick! 

The Bible says that “the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of man.” Well, I don’t know about you, but if anything is going to be considered as “the foolishness of God,” I might nominate the tick.  Annoying little critters.  But, this “foolishness of God” baffles and amazes the best of our scientists.

Consider creation.  Slow down.  Look at all the billboards around you.  Listen to them.  Marvel.  Wonder.  Be struck with awe.  Ponder the infinite greatness and wisdom of our God as it’s revealed in the things that he has made.  If you are a Christian, it will inspire you to be a better worshipper.  It will enrich your joy in the beauty and artistry of your Father.  If you are a skeptic, it might just challenge some of your assumptions. 

“… he did not leave himself without witness…”
—Acts 14.17