Thought for Today

Did you see any of them? Plastered all over social media for the past couple of days, there have been pictures of a pair of bald eagles, Jackie and Shadow, hatching two baby bald eagle chicks in Big Bear, California. That pair of eagles is particularly famous, and their nest is monitored by cameras 24/7.

The celebrations are everywhere. Think about it for a minute. What is being celebrated? A Female and a male bald eagle give birth to their young. How can that be? Aren’t we supposed to revile cis gendering? Doesn’t our culture and many of our schools teach children to embrace non-binary identities?

Isn’t having a child often considered an unwanted burden, one of the worst things a liberated woman can do? After all, the human birth rate in this country has fallen from 3.7 in the late 1950s to 1.6 today, a rate that will result in an ongoing population decrease (the same is occurring in many other countries). How then, can we celebrate a male and female bald eagle giving birth? What if the female eagle wanted to identify as non-binary?

In reality, that is not how it works, is it? A male and female giving birth to young is the norm, isn’t it? When we see birth in nature, especially when it involves endangered species, or reintroducing a species to its original habitat, it is celebrated, as with the pair of bald eagles. It is only in terms of humans where a social construct is elevated over biological God-created reality.

While we delight in male and female in nature, we rebel against it when it come to humans. Genesis 1:27 (NAU): “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” It is guaranteed that if God says “X” is true, Satan will say the opposite, that “non-X” is the reality. So if God says, “male and female,” many will respond with, “non-binary, anything other than male or female.” God gives us the freedom to believe whatever we want, to live however we choose. God lays out the one way of life (which we celebrated yesterday on Easter) and the ways of death.

What is so fascinating is that when it comes to non-humans, we often celebrate the way God created things. Whether conscious or not, we do acknowledge God’s created order, as we see with the public reaction to the birth of the eagle chicks. It is only when it comes to our own selves that we seek to deny it. Yet deep down, whether we want to openly admit it or not, we grasp the biblical reality. The end of Romans 1 is quite blunt on that point, that while knowing what we are doing deserves death, we not only practice those very things, we encourage others to do the same.

Are we honest enough to admit that we do know the truth, that God’s ways are right?