- Series:Animals, Transcript English
1 John 4:19
“We love him, because he first loved us.”
The Choco Indians of Panama and Colombia use the poison from the skin of the beautiful poison dart frog to make their lethal darts. The bright orange and deep blue skin of this frog serves to warn predators that it is best left alone and its poisonous skin untouched.
Although it is deadly, the poison dart frog is one of the most loving parents in the entire amphibian world. The female will lay about a dozen eggs in the leaf litter within her mate’s territory. Both parents will stand watch over the eggs, keeping them moist, until the tadpoles emerge. Then the female allows each tadpole, one at a time, to wriggle onto her back. She takes each tadpole, in its turn, to its own miniature pond created by water trapped in the fronds of jungle plants. The mother poison dart frog remembers where each one of her tadpoles is and returns on a regular schedule to lay infertile eggs for the growing youngster to eat.
I would prefer to think that the care of the adult poison dart frogs for their children grows out of a sense of love for their offspring, and we know that God is the author of all love. But even if this care is programmed instinct, we must still find the “programmer” – and that takes us back to the Creator once again. Such wisdom cannot be said to come from nowhere.
Prayer:
Dear Heavenly Father, the source of all love and wisdom, grant wisdom to Your people so that they may effectively witness to those around them who are being misled to believe that love is merely instinct and that wisdom can come from nowhere. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Notes:
Brownlee, Shannon, 1985, Discover, May, p. 55. Image: Yellow banded poison dart frog. (PD)
