by Kim Cimuchowski
Do you ever get curious about animals and what God was thinking when he made them? For example, why did God make an animal like the sloth that moves so slowly or the hippopotamus that weighs a ton? Or wonder what was He thinking when he made the zebra with all of its beautiful yet unique stripes? His imagination is amazing, I can’t wait to meet Him and ask Him questions!
Today, I want to share a little bit about the zebra. I love to learn new things. So I did some research to learn and understand more about this unique animal. The zebra lives mostly on the plains of Africa, however there are also some that can be found in the mountains and other regions. They are social animals and typically staying in groups called a dazzle or a zeal. Zebras look like horses and donkeys but are totally unique. But they are related and very different. My research taught me that zebras are not easily tamed, in fact they typically have an incredibly aggressive temperament. For example, if a humans were to go near a zebra, it would typically try to kick, bite or injure them in some way.
I found it really fascinating that scientist have finally learned that a zebra’s skin starts off black and then develops white stripes. Something that they discovered as a result of studying zebras in their mother’s womb. Of course the most noteworthy things about zebras, are their stripes. God gave zebras their white stripes for a few reasons. Firstly, living in the hot plains of Africa, the white stripes were given to act as a natural cooling system. Imagine a black zebra in the middle of the African plains. It is not hard to see how they would struggle to survive in that heat. The white allows for the suns rays to dissipate some of the heat providing them some relief so that they do not overheat and die. Also, the zebra stays in groups in an effort to help each other stay safe. I believe that God gave them these stripes to help confuse their prey. Lions and cheetah are some of the zebras prey. The hunters might find it confusing to see all of the stripes on a pack of zebras running together. Additionally, it would be harder for them to distinguish one zebra from each other, partially because they can only see in black and white. Cool huh? Lastly, the best thing about the zebra, in my opinion, is that every zebra’s stripes are different. No zebra is exactly the same.
Which leads me to the point of this post… we are a lot like the zebra. We are all different. We have markings just like the zebra that make us different; our fingerprints and our DNA. How has God made you different? In this case, I am talking about physical differences. But what about differences on the inside? What talents or personality traits do you have? Let’s take it a few steps farther. What kind of fingerprint can you, being God’s amazing creature, leave on this world?
Here are some verses that encourage me when I think about how special and unique we are.
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