Do Birds Take a Sabbath Rest?

Genesis 2:3
“And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.”

Myles Willard is an avid bird watcher, award-winning nature photographer and long-time friend of Creation Moments. Myles has given us hundreds of breathtaking nature photos, one of which accompanies the printed transcript of today’s program at the Creation Moments website.

One of Myles Willard's superb photos The reason I’m telling you about him today is because of an unexpected discovery he made while looking out the window of his home in Michigan. Each fall he meticulously tracks and logs the number of migrating warblers that stop by for a rest in the big cedar tree in his yard. After tracking the activity of over 1,500 warblers for 18 years, he was surprised to see a statistically significant dip in the number of birds stopping by that occurred on every seventh day!

Did these migrating birds have a built-in instinct that somehow made them follow the biblical principle of a Sabbath rest? We are not saying, of course, that the warblers were knowingly obeying God’s fourth commandment. However, if God worked for six days and then rested on the seventh, why would it be hard to believe that God gave these birds a cycle of six days of work followed by a seventh day of rest?

According to the account given in the book Inspired Evidence: Only One Reality, “It would seem that Myles Willard, science teacher, nature photographer and bird watcher, has found and documented such a pattern.”

Prayer: Oh Lord, thank You for doing all the work necessary for our salvation so we can rest securely in the knowledge that – by grace through faith – we can have eternal life! Amen.

Author: Steven J. Schwartz
Ref: Myles Willard, The Rest Is History, monograph, 2008. Cited in Inspired Evidence: Only One Reality by Julie Von Vett and Bruce Malone, April 29 (Search for the Truth Publications, 2012). Photo: One of Myles Willard’s superb photos. Used with permission.