Now that summer is upon us, it's best we made peace with the insects around us.   Why, you ask?  Because....well...resistance is futile.  I was reminded of this when reading Anne Rooney’s book, You Wouldn’t Want to Live without Insects.  In it, she offers insect insight. 

Across our globe, there are six to ten million species of insects, although scientists have only named about 900,000 of those species. Insects are found everywhere in the world—even in frozen Antarctica!

And boy, are we outnumbered. There are 200 million insects for every person on earth.  About 90% of all life-forms on earth (not including bacteria) are insects. 

Wrap your brain around this: the mass of all the ants in the world is greater than the mass of all the people.  Still not creeped out?  Then process this: In a rain forest, insects weigh more than the all the animals with backbones put together!

Of course you knew that one bat can eat up to 3000 insects a night, right?  A single swarm of locusts can cover 460 square miles, destroying crops and causing famine.  Each locust eats its own weight in food every day.   Cockroaches can live for six weeks without any food—and four weeks without a head!  Wasps can survive 180 times more radiation than humans.

After the explosion in Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear power plant, insects survived better than other animals.  Insects are often the first creatures to move back into a disaster zone. 

Nehemiah 9:6: "You alone are the LORD. You have made the heavens, The heaven of heavens with all their host, The earth and all that is on it.”  To which I add—even insects.

And now you know why I say, it’s better to learn to live with insects than to expect to exist without them. 

For Moody Radio, I’m Jon Gauger, and those are my thoughts.

Now…where’s my fly swatter?!

It’s the largest home in America. Can you name it?  It’s Asheville’s Biltmore estate.

When railroad and shipping magnate George Vanderbilt first visited Asheville in 1888, he fell in love with the place and promptly amassed land to construct his sprawling residence.  Forget acres.  The Biltmore sits on nearly 11 square miles!                    

Any sense of scale was out-scaled in the construction of this home.  To ship in the raw materials and labor, a special railroad spur was created.  Every day for nearly seven years, hundreds of workers plopped themselves on top of timbers, tile and stone bound for the construction site. 

By Christmas Eve, 1895, the home was finally opened.  And what a home!  

Imagine 250 rooms, including 35 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, 65 fireplaces, three kitchens, a bowling alley, and even an indoor pool.  While you and I speak in terms of square footage, this estate boasts of four acres of floor space.  Truly, Mr. Vanderbilt…built more.

But even as we mounted the stairs, trekked through the halls and gawked at the opulence, I heard the voice of One whose estate will dwarf anything Mr. Vanderbilt ever conceived.

Jesus said, “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”

And if Jesus is the architect and builder, it’s a safe bet those dwellings will be nothing less than spectacular:

What no eye has seen,

what no ear has heard,

and what no human mind has conceived —

the things God has prepared for those who love him

--1 Corinthians 2:9

Here’s to living forever in the house that Jesus is building!

The animals are leaving!

A favorite small town nature museum is about to get a make-over.  But maybe not for the best.   Currently on display are more than 50 mounted and stuffed wild animals ranging from a beaver to a bison. They represent life on America's plains and frankly, they are magnificent.

I never tire of crouching down and locking eyes with a trio of coyotes.  Processing the span of a wolf's paw is enough to bring a shudder.  And peering at a mountain lion up close jerks one into a fresh reality of the killing machine these creatures can be. 

But most of these beautifully preserved animal displays are about to disappear in a nod toward modernization.  They will be replaced by interactive displays--touch-screen monitors.  In the world of museums, this has become the de facto standard.

The new displays will share more information, but they will largely insulate visitors from a proper sense of wonder.   Providing more information in the information age might be like dumping water into a water fall.   We already have enough, thanks!

What we lack is a capacity for wonder.   In fact, I'd call it an endangered species.  Wonder is so rare, we don't miss it—and don't know that we should. 

It's almost as if curators and others are afraid to let us draw our own conclusions about the animals.   Or they fear that because the mounted bison currently on display doesn't spin, flash or make noise, it will fail to capture our imagination.  Not so.

Gauging that the back of a bison is as tall as my head is a wondrous reality that comes not from peering at an HD screen, but from standing next to the real thing.  I say, let’s learn to ponder the real thing and leave touch screens for video games.

Give awe some space.  Let it marinate in time--and wonder is the byproduct.

“O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name is your name in all the earth.”  --Psalms 8:1

Spring has finally reached Illinois.  And trust me, this year we had our doubts.

If you are fortunate enough to live outside the Midwest, kindly indulge my excessive jubilation over the sight of leaves on trees.  While you may have been enjoying them for weeks or months now, where we go camping, many of the trees are still only budding.

As I pondered their green grandeur, I was struck by the potential of just one tree. Consider this.   One single tree provides shade that means comfort for picnics...and lower air conditioning bills at home.

A tree provides food.  Caterpillars and other critters lunch and munch on every tree, while armies of ants trek up and down the trunk trafficking food. 

A tree provides homes for animals like birds, squirrels and raccoons.

Then there's the beauty of a tree...the sound of a tree, whether the rustle of leaves, or the whisper of a pine bough swish.

A tree provides a wind barrier a sound barrier, and natural privacy.  We haven't discussed lumber production.  Or paper.  Or, in the case of Maple trees, syrup.  Haven't mentioned apples and peaches and pears and almonds and walnuts or pine cones (with help from a seven year old named Joslynn, I collect them).

And did I mention an average tree absorbs about 48 pounds of carbon dioxide annually, while creating about 260 pounds of oxygen each year?

Now...put all of those factoids into perspective as you read Psalm One's description of a godly woman or man whose delight is in the Law of the Lord:

“He is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season and whose leave does not whither.   Whatever he does prospers.”

Want to provide shade, comfort, protection and life for others? God says,

     “Be like a tree.

      Delight in Me.”

Some missionaries work in foreign countries.

My friend Jack works as a missionary in (mostly) foreign cars—Chicago cabs (where the Toyota Prius is king). 

Crazy guy, Jack.  He'll talk to any taxi driver, any time about Jesus. But his latest ride in downtown Chicago is a conversation I just had to pass along.  Here's how Jack told the story to me:

“Clearly, my driver was not born in the U.S., so after the usual greeting stuff, I asked him straight up, 'What is your country of birth?'  He says, with a playful smile, 'Can you guess?'

“Well, I've traveled a couple of times to West Africa,” Jack muses, “so I just guessed Ghana.  Looking into the rear view mirror, I could see a big ol' smile on the driver's face (name is James, by the way).”

The ride would be less than two miles, so Jack wasted little time moving into missionary mode. He continued:

“'Tell me, are you going to heaven?' I asked James boldly and with a smile.  A smile is a wonderful outreach tool, Jack adds parenthetically.   “The driver tells me, 'Well, I try to do good things, so I hope so.'”

Jack can be blunt—and I suppose when you have just a few seconds to get to the point, you better get to the point.   Jack told James:

“'I have bad news and good news.  The bad news is that you can't be good enough.  The good news is that the goodness of Jesus in dying on the cross for you and me—IS good enough.'  This, of course, sparked a whole conversation, and I quoted verses like Ephesians 2:8.9, reminding him that we are not saved by works, but by faith in Christ Jesus.”

“The ride went by fast, but when he pulled over to the curb, I asked the guy, 'James, is there any reason why you would not want to receive the gift of eternal life right now?'  He told me no, so I asked if I could pray with him in the cab.”

“Right there, he prayed with me to receive Christ.  What a great way to start your day,” concluded Jack.

What a great day, indeed!