By Pastor Mark Hopper

During our recent Christmas travel, we enjoyed spending a day at the city zoo with our grandkids.

This was quite an adventure, and the grandkids loved it.

We saw tall giraffes, powerful lions and lots of monkeys.  We saw two huge Rhinos and several formidable Hippos.  They were amazing.

There was an entertaining bird show with hawks, parrots and an ostrich.  The hawks dove right toward the audience and flew right over our heads.  We ducked for cover!

There was also a sea lion and dolphin show.  These beautiful animals performed some remarkable feats that the audience loved.  Four young children from the audience even had the opportunity to meet and touch the sea lions and dolphins.

An aerial tram provided a bird’s eye view of the entire zoo.  It was helpful to see the animal living areas from a different perspective.

As we left the zoo, my wife commented on how amazing it is to see the beauty and diversity of God’s creation.  The colors of the birds, the size of the animals and the gracefulness of the sea lions and dolphins were remarkable.

In the Old Testament, there is a book called Job.  In Chapters 38 and 39, God asks Job to consider all of the things that He has created.  God uses this as an object lesson to help Job understand that He is far greater and more powerful than we will ever comprehend.

God refers to lions and mountain goats, hawks and ostriches, horses and oxen.  All of these are examples of God’s majesty and creativity.

The next time you go to the zoo, I hope you will be reminded of the wonderful world that God created for all of us to enjoy!

Pastor Mark Hopper is from the Evangelical Free Church of Diamond Bar, 3255 South Diamond Bar Ave. Sunday services are 9 a.m. and 10:45 a.m. For more information, call (909) 594-7604 or visit http://www.efreedb.org.