Newsletter
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IF YOU
DOUBTED THAT GOD EXISTS
Meet the Very Technical, Highly Engineered
Dromedary Camel
When I’m hungry, I’ll eat almost anything-a leather bridle, a piece of rope, my master’s tent, or a pair of shoes. My mouth is so tough a thorny cactus doesn’t bother it. I love to chow down grass and other plants that grow here on the Arabian desert. I’m a dromedary camel, the one-hump kind that lives on hot deserts in the Middle East.
My
hump, all eighty pounds of it, is filled with fat-my body fuel-not water as some
people believe. My Mighty Maker gave it to me because He knew I wouldn’t always be
able to find food as I travel across the hot sands. When I don’t find any chow, my body automatically takes fat
from the hump, feeds my system, and keeps me going strong. This is my emergency food
supply. If I can’t find any plants to munch, my body uses up my hump. When the hump
gets smaller, it starts to tip to one side. But when I get to a nice oasis and begin to
eat again, my hump soon builds back to normal.
I’ve
been known to drink twenty-seven gallons of water in ten minutes. My Master Designer
made me in such a fantastic way that in a matter of minutes all the water I’ve
swallowed travels to the billions of microscopic cells that make up my flesh. Naturally,
the water I swallow first goes into my stomach. There thirsty blood vessels absorb and
carry it to every part of my body. Scientists have tested my stomach and found it empty
ten minutes after I’ve drunk twenty gallons.
In an eight hour day I can carry a four hundred pound load a hundred miles across a hot,
dry desert and not stop once for a drink or something to eat. In fact, I’ve been
known to go eight days without a drink, but then I look a wreck. I lose 227 pounds, my
ribs show through my skin, and I look terribly skinny. But I feel great! I look thin
because the billions of cells lose their water. They’re no longer fat. They’re
flat.
Normally my blood contains 94 percent water, just like yours. But when I can’t
find any water to drink, the heat of the sun gradually robs a little water out of my
blood. Scientists have found that my blood can lose up to 40 percent of its water, and
I’m still healthy. Doctor’s say
human blood has to stay very close to 94 percent water. If you lose 5 percent of it, you
can’t see anymore; 10 percent, you can’t hear and you go insane; 12 percent,
your blood is as thick as molasses and your heart can’t pump the thick stuff. It
stops, and you’re dead. But
that’s not true with me.
Why? Scientists say my blood is different. My red
cells are elongated. Yours are round. Maybe that’s what makes the difference. This
proves I’m designed for the desert, or the desert is designed for me. Did you ever
hear of a design without a Designer? After I
find a water hole, I’ll drink for about ten minutes and my skinny body starts to
change almost immediately. In that short time my body fills out nicely, I don’t look
skinny anymore, and I gain back the 227 pounds I lost.
Even
though I lose a lot of water on the desert, my body conserves it too. Way in the
beginning when my intelligent Engineer made me, He gave me a specially designed nose that
saves water. When I exhale, I don’t lose much. My nose traps that warm, moist air
from my lungs and absorbs it in my nasal membranes.
Tiny
blood vessels in those membranes take that back into my blood. How’s that for a
recycling system? Pretty cool, isn’t it. It works because my nose is cool. My cool
nose changes that warm moisture in the air from my lungs into water. But how does my nose
get cool? I breath in hot dry desert air, and it goes through my wet nasal passages. This
produces a cooling effect, and my nose stays as much as 18 degrees cooler than the rest of
my body.
I love
to travel the beautiful sand dunes. It’s really quite easy, because my Creator
gave me specially engineered sand shoes for feet. My hooves are wide, and they get even
wider when I step on them. Each foot has two long, bony toes with tough, leathery skin
between, My soles are a little like webbed feet. They won’t let me wink into the
soft, drifting sand. This is good, because often my master wants me to carry him one
hundred miles across the desert in just one day. (I troop about ten miles per
hour.)
Sometimes
a big windstorm comes out of nowhere, bringing flying sand with it. My Master Designer put
special muscles in my nostrils that close the openings, keeping sand out of my nose but
still allowing me enough air to breathe.
My eyelashes arch down over my
eyes like screens, keeping the sand and sun out but still letting me see clearly. If a
grain of sand slips through and gets in my eye, the Creator took care of that too. He gave
me an inner eyelid that automatically wipes the sand off my eyeball just like a windshield
wiper. Some people think I’m conceited because I always walk around with my head held
high and my nose in the air. But that’s just because of the way I’m made. My
eyebrows are so thick and busy I have to hold my head high to peek out from underneath
them. I’m glad I have them though. They shade my eyes from the bright sun.
Desert
people depend on me for many things. Not only am I their best form of transportation,
but I’m also their grocery store. Mrs. Camel gives very rich milk that people make
into butter and cheese. I shed my thick fur coat once a year, and that can be woven into
cloth. A few young camels are used for beef, but I don’t like to talk about that.
For a
long time we camels have been called the “ships of the desert” because of
the way we sway from side to side when we trot. Some of our riders get seasick. I sway
from side to side because of the way my legs work. Both legs on one side move forward at
the same time, elevating that side. My “left, right left, right” motion makes my
rider feel like he is in a rocking chair going sideways. When I was six months old,
special knee pads started to grow on my front legs. The intelligent Creator knew I had to
have them. They help me lower my 1000 pounds to the ground.
If I didn’t have them, my knees would soon become sore and infected, and I
could never lie down. I’d die of exhaustion.
By the
way, I don’t
get thick knee pads because I fall on my knees. I fall on my knees because I already have
these tough pads. Someone very great thought of me and knew I needed them. He designed
them into my genes. It’s real difficult for me to understand how some people say I
evolved into what I now am. I’m very technical, highly engineered dromedary camel.
Things like me don’t just happen. They’re planned on a drawing board by Someone
very brilliant, Someone very logical.
John 1:1 says, “In the
beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The
Word means “logical, intelligent One.”
Verse 3 says, “All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that
was made.”
Who was the Word? Look at verse 14. “And the Word became flesh
and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.” Who was made flesh? The Lord Jesus
Christ, the Word who created everything, including the dromedary camel.
by Bob
Devine
Mr. Devine is the creator and narrator of “The Storybook Room” on Moody radio and
the author of many children’s books on nature (Moody Press).
Reprinted by permission from Moody/September 1981