(From Moody Press)
If you ever doubted that God exists,
meet the Very Technical, Highly Engineered
Dromedary Camel.
When I'm hungry, I'll eat almost anything-
a leather bridle, a piece of rope, my master's tent,
or a pair of shoes.
My mouth is so tough a thorny cactus doesn't bother it.
I love to chow down grass and other plants
that grow here on the Arabian desert.
I'm a dromedary camel, the one-hump kind
that lives on hot deserts in the Middle East.
My hump, all eighty pounds of it,
is filled with fat-my body fuel-not water as some people believe.
My Mighty Maker gave it to me because
He knew I wouldn't always be able to find food
as I travel across the hot sands.
When I don't find any chow, my body automatically
takes fat from the hump, feeds my system,
and keeps me going strong.
This is my emergency food supply.
If I can't find any plants to munch, my body uses up my hump.
When the hump gets smaller, it starts to tip to one side.
But when I get to a nice oasis and begin to eat again,
my hump soon builds back to normal.
I've been known to drink twenty-seven gallons of water in ten minutes.
My Master Designer made me in such a fantastic way that
in a matter of minutes all the water I've swallowed
travels to the billions of microscopic cells that make up my flesh.
Naturally, the water I swallow first goes into my stomach.
There thirsty blood vessels absorb and carry it to every part of my body.
Scientists have tested my stomach and found it empty
ten minutes after I've drunk twenty gallons.
In an eight hour day, I can carry a four hundred pound load
a hundred miles across a hot, dry desert
and not stop once for a drink or something to eat.
In fact, I've been known to go eight days without a drink,
but then I look a wreck.
I lose 227 pounds, my ribs show through my skin,
and I look terribly skinny.
But I feel great!
I look thin because the billions of cells lose their water.
They're no longer fat. They're flat.
Normally my blood contains 94 percent water, just like yours.
But when I can't find any water to drink,
the heat of the sun gradually robs a little water out of my blood.
Scientists have found that my blood can lose up to
40 percent of its water, and I'm still healthy.
Doctor's say human blood has to stay very close to 94 percent water. If you lose 5 percent of it, you can't see anymore; 10 percent, you can't hear and you go insane; 12 percent, your blood is as thick as molasses and your heart can't pump the thick stuff. It stops, and you're dead.
But that's not true with me.
Why?
Scientists say my blood is different.
My red cells are elongated. Yours are round.
Maybe that's what makes the difference.
This proves I'm designed for the desert,
or the desert is designed for me.
Did you ever hear of a design without a Designer?
After I find a water hole,
I'll drink for about ten minutes
and my skinny body starts to change almost immediately.
In that short time my body fills out nicely, I don't look skinny anymore,
and I gain back the 227 pounds I lost.
Even though I lose a lot of water on the desert,
my body conserves it too.
Way in the beginning when my intelligent Engineer made me,
He gave me a specially designed nose that saves water.
When I exhale, I don't lose much.
My nose traps that warm, moist air from my lungs
and absorbs it in my nasal membranes.
Tiny blood vessels in those membranes take that back into my blood.
How's that for a recycling system? Pretty cool, isn't it?
It works because my nose is cool.
My cool nose changes that warm moisture in the air
from my lungs into water.
But how does my nose get cool?
I breathe in hot dry desert air,
and it goes through my wet nasal passages.
This produces a cooling effect, and my nose stays as much as
18 degrees cooler than the rest of my body.
I love to travel the beautiful sand dunes.
It's really quite easy, because
my Creator gave me specially engineered sand shoes for feet.
My hooves are wide, and they get even wider when I step on them.
Each foot has two long, bony toes with tough, leathery skin
between my soles, are a little like webbed feet.
They won't let me sink into the soft, drifting sand.
This is good because often my master wants me to carry him
one hundred miles across the desert in just one day.
(I troop about ten miles per hour.)
Sometimes a big windstorm comes out of nowhere,
bringing flying sand with it.
My Master Designer put special muscles in my nostrils
that close the openings, keeping sand out of my nose
but still allowing me enough air to breathe.
My eyelashes arch down over my eyes like screens,
keeping the sand and sun out but still letting me see clearly.
If a grain of sand slips through and gets in my eye,
the Creator took care of that too.
He gave me an inner eyelid that automatically
wipes the sand off my eyeball just like a windshield wiper.
Some people think I'm conceited because I always walk around
with my head held high and my nose in the air.
But that's just because of the way I'm made.
My eyebrows are so thick and bushy
I have to hold my head high to peek out from underneath them.
I'm glad I have them though.
They shade my eyes from the bright sun.
Desert people depend on me for many things.
Not only am I their best form of transportation,
but I'm also their grocery store.
Mrs Camel gives very rich milk
that people make into butter and cheese.
I shed my thick fur coat once a year,
and that can be woven into cloth.
A few young camels are used for beef,
but I don't like to talk about that.
For a long time, we camels have been called
the "ships of the desert" because of the way
we sway from side to side when we trot.
Some of our riders get seasick.
I sway from side to side because of the way my legs work.
Both legs on one side move forward at the same time,
elevating that side.
My "left, right left, right" motion makes my rider feel like
he is in a rocking chair going sideways.
When I was six months old,
special knee pads started to grow on my front legs.
The intelligent Creator knew I had to have them.
They help me lower my 1000 pounds to the ground.
If I didn't have them,
my knees would soon become sore and infected,
and I could never lie down.
I'd die of exhaustion.
By the way,
I don't get thick knee pads because I fall on my knees.
I fall on my knees because I already have these tough pads.
Someone very great thought of me and knew I needed them.
He designed them into my genes.
It's really difficult for me to understand
how some people say I evolved into what I now am.
I'm very technical, highly engineered dromedary camel.
Things like me don't just happen.
They're planned on a drawing board
by Someone very brilliant,
Someone very logical.
John 1:1 says,
"In the beginning was the Word.
And the Word was with God,
and the Word was God."
The Word means "logical, intelligent One."
Verse 3 says,
"All things were made by him and without him
was not anything made that was made."
Who was the Word?
Look at verse 14.
"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,
and we beheld His glory."
Who was made all flesh?
The Lord Jesus Christ,
the Word who created everything,
including the dromedary camel.
by Bob Devine Reprinted by permission from Moody/September 1981
Mr. Devine is the creator and narrator of
"The Storybook Room"
on Moody radio and the author of eight children's books on nature
(Moody Press)*
