Before you turn away in disgust, never to visit this blog again, hear me out.
God made a unique creature to fill a very specific role, a purpose only for them. He gave them a very specific collection of attributes necessary to complete their task. Often, this creature is considered unusual, unconventional. It doesn’t fit the mold, does its own thing and when it does that thing that God designed it to do, lives are saved.
While that paragraph is written around the nature of vultures, we too are uniquely created, designed for a specific role, a purpose, and have been (or will be) given the attributes, gifts and skills needed to fulfill that God assigned purpose. I rarely fit expectations or maybe I just don’t feel like I fit. But when I am actively choosing to do the things that I know God has put me in place to do, I feel like I’m soaring. My whole being knows I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. It doesn’t matter the success or failure, hurdles, hurts or challenges.
Vultures have a reputation. Ugly, vile, repulsive. They eat dead things after all. But that is their purpose. And to do that God designed them with no feathers on their heads, necks or feet so they don’t retain bacteria. They are the only birds with the sense of smell needed to locate their task and the acidity in their digestive system kills every deadly disease they consume including things that would kill you or I with only a drop.
In the heat of the day, they can see the thermals rising from the earth – those wavy lines of heat we can see only when they’re rising off the road in the summer – and using only those currents, stay aloft for hours and travel for miles without flapping their wings. Elegant, drifting, floating.
So yes. disgusting and ugh. I get it that no one wants to be compared to such a thing. But I do.
God created. Unique. Purposeful. Soaring. Elegant.
(For an excellent read about vultures and condors, try “Vultures. Nature’s Ghastly Gourmet” by Canadian author Wayne Grady)
