A friend of mine recently brought to me a question
that had been posed to him by someone looking to discredit the
existence of God. This individual insisted that if he could find
an animal that did not have a purpose designed for it by God,
then it must have come about by natural evolutionary processes
and God, therefore, does not exist. He thought he had found the
perfect animal that would stump my friend and, therefore, prove
that there is no God. The animal he chose was the "Locust."
I am assuming that by this he meant the Cicada and not the grasshopper-type
animal famous in the Bible and even modern times. A little study
into this animal shows that, indeed, this creation of God is vital
to the design that God created for the world around us.
The periodic cicada or "locust," as
it is called in the United States, is an amazing animal. They
are called periodic because of the appearance of the "broods"
after long periods of time. This time delay can be from one year
for the "Annual Cicada" up to as many as 17 years for
some broods of the periodic variety. This ability to live under
ground as a nymph for as many as 17 years and then emerge within
just a few days of each other in numbers up to 1.5 million per
acre is indeed amazing. How these insects have been "programmed"
by acts of pure chance (evolution) with this one ability, alone,
would stagger the imagination and should prove to a rational person
the existence of an "All Knowing" Creator. Then, there
are those that stay in the ground for 13 years and those that
are only down for a single year, the annual cicada. This must
be the work of the eternal, all-powerful God, because naturalistic
science has no answer to how this would occur.
The cicada is an amazing animal in other ways
as well. It is among the loudest animals on earth - being able
to produce a chirp audible for more than a half mile away. As
adults, they are very fearsome looking, with bulging bright red
eyes. They are harmless to all living things with the exception
of young trees where the female lays her eggs. The eggs are laid
on the underside of a twig, and, after maturing, the ant-like
nymphs drop to the ground and burrow two to eighteen inches for
their entire lifetime, no matter how long that is.
What possible good can such an animal be? Well,
all we need to do is ask the Cicada Killer wasp. The "killer"
feeds its young with the cicada, primarily the annual type, but
any that is available. By stinging the cicada, the "killer'
paralyzes it and then takes it back to its nest and lays an egg
on it. After the egg hatches, the wasp young feeds on the immobilized
"locust."
The Cicada Killer wasp is not the only animal
that feeds on the cicada. During the huge emergence of the 13
and 17 year periodic cicada, they are eaten by many different
animals. Birds, spiders, snakes, and even dogs are among those
that will eat them! So, as a food source for many animals, the
cicada "locust" is a very valued member of the food
chain.
So, even in the humble 13 to 17 year time keeper,
the cicada, we see the amazing creation power of an all-knowing
God. Praise be to Him. Rt. 1 Box 116A, Belington, WV 26250.