Becky was sitting in the car in our driveway when she called me one day last week.  She had just had an up close and personal meeting with a large owl, probably a Great Horned or Barn Owl, sitting on our mailbox as she turned into our driveway.  Owls are quite territorial and seem to have been attacking people lately.

Then I remembered that I had found a dead grey squirrel laying by the mailbox.  Likely the owl had come to enjoy some lunch, however; I had moved the squirrel.  It’s not that the owl hasn’t had anything to eat lately.  Becky mentioned that we don’t have any stray cats about anymore, and few rabbits, though during the summer I had seen several small rabbits scurrying about the garden.  They had been born in a hole under our mailbox.

It strikes me that while we humans go about our business, often not paying much attention to the animal world, the world of predators and prey go about their too.  It’s a reminder that perhaps the world does not solely revolve around us.  The animal world serves God as well and God takes care of them.

In I Kings 17:6, while the prophet Elijah is camped out at the Cherith creek, “ravens brought him bread and meat morning and evening and he drank from the brook.”

In Isaiah 34 owls are among the creatures that settle in to the wasteland to clean up the mess left after God’s judgment against the nations, particularly against who were the descendants of Ishmael, Abraham and Hagar’s son.

Isaiah 34 makes for some pretty gory readings and then is followed by Chapter 35 in which God reverses everything He has brought on in the previous chapter.