THE LEATHERBACK!

  Leatherback image by Reiner.Kraft is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

My word!!!  Did you know that prehistoric sea turtles still exist?  The Leatherback turtle pictured above has been in existence for more than 150 million years!!!!!  They were around when dinosaurs roamed the earth.  They are the largest species of turtles in the world and are definitely our friends.  THEY EAT THOSE NASTY JELLY FISH!  

And they get BIG.  According to Oceana, they can weigh up to 2,200 pounds and be 5.5 feet long!  They do not have a shell and are named after their tough skin that resembles rubbery leather.  Leatherbacks are capable of diving 4000 feet below sea level and stay under water for 85 minutes!  They are found in both tropic and temperate waters of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans because they not only have a thick layer of fat that protects them from extremely cold water, but a specialized blood vessel structure called a countercurrent heat exchanger that maintains their body temperature higher than the surrounding water.  And they are good swimmers!  They typically swim over 10,000 miles a year to reach their nesting grounds.  One female Leatherback was recorded by a satellite to have swum 12,000 miles from Indonesia to Oregon in order to return to the exact same nesting spot where she was hatched.

How did she find her way home?  It’s a big ocean out there!

Biologists believe that she ‘reads’ the earth’s magnetic field to find her way HOME.  

They have found that many animals have the ability to detect and orient themselves using the earth’s magnetic field including sharks, tuna, salmon, dolphins, whales, lobsters, eels, stingrays, even honey bees and birds.  They apparently have a ‘sixth sense’ that we don’t have!  A built in GPS!  Wouldn’t that be nice?  The illustration below shows you what this invisible magnetic field looks like.  You know that it exists if you ever used a compass!  The needle ‘reads’ the invisible magnetic field and points directly to the north pole.  It is a tried-and-true navigational tool.  

                                                                                                                                                            Photo credit:  “File: Earths Magnetic Field Confusion.svg: Greek3/derivative work:
Mike Run is licensed under CC.

Don’t be envious!  We have something even better!  We have the ability to ‘read’ what I’m going to call the ‘draw-er’, that invisible pull of all creation that draws us to our birthplace, our nesting place, back into the arms of the one who created us, back to our home where we belong.  Not just every year like the Leatherback, but forever.  All we have to do is open our eyes, our ears and our heart.

Jesus said, ‘And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 
John 12:32. The draw-er is on 24/7.  The invisible ‘draw-er’ is actually the omnipresent (present everywhere at once) God Himself.   Actually, the ‘draw-er’ has been drawing people to Himself since the creation of the world.  ‘The rocks cry out’, ‘the invisible things of God are clearly seen’, ‘ask the beasts and they will teach you’, ‘the heavens declare the glory of God’.  The word of God, every metaphor, every miracle, the wonders of God, the church, worship and the arts are drawing, drawing, drawing people to God!!!  The life and death of Jesus, His suffering on the cross added to this draw and revealed His promise and His will to ‘draw all people to Himself’.  

King David wrote these words in Psalm 139:13-18.  ‘For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful; I know that full well.  My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.  Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.  How precious to me are your thoughts, God!  How vast is the sum of them!  Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with you’.

God made you!  He ‘created your inmost being’.  He knit you together in your mother’s womb.’ King David wrote these words, and you notice in verse 18 he said, “when I awake, I am still with you.”  He had returned to the God who made Him, the place of His birth, just like the Leatherback Turtle.  Have you?  We don’t have a sixth sense like a turtle, salmon, or birds that follow the magnetic field to find their way home, but we have a promise from God, ‘If we seek Him, we will find Him, if we seek Him with all our heart.’ Jeremiah 29:13. He is everywhere around you, drawing you back where you belong.  Are your eyes, ears and heart open?

God loves you and created you to be with Him.  HE WANTS YOU BACK HOME.

Want to see how incredibly big they are???  Go to ‘Giant Leatherback Sea Turtle’ on youtube.

Click on the following link: https://youtu.be/zDUe6jChl8A