I was watching a fascinating DVD called "Planet Earth" last night and was moved to weeping after a segment about a magnificent Polar Bear. He emerged from hibernation needing to eat. This required a long trek across ice to his normal feeding grounds. Sadly, the ice was shatteringly thin, he kept falling through the ice - struggling to stay on top. The bear tried to spread his massive weight out on the ice, to no avail. Getting to food became an exhausting, perilous two day swim through shattered ice and the open ocean.
Nearly starved to death and totally exhausted, the bear found a small island with Walruses. He surfaced on the island and collapsed in a heap for the night, recovering from his drama at sea.
The following day, out of sheer desperation, he tried to attack one of these massive, tusked creatures (they were much bigger than him, a mass of roiling blubber and tusks). Their skin was so tough that the bear's teeth and claws could hardly penetrate it. The Walruses began to retreat to the sea. Frantically, the bear attempted to wrestle numerous Walruses - to no avail. In one final act of desperation, he struggled so bitterly with one creature that it dragged him out into the sea - a frenzy of blood and panic.
Defeated and punctured by tusks, the starving bear limped back to land, curled up in sorrow and waited to die. I wept.
Just this morning I read a Psalm about the Lord "providing food for all flesh." This must not mean what a plain reading would indicate, because animals and people starve to death in droves - everyday.
Is the Lord grieved by the savagery of nature? Did he create these beautiful animals to struggle with each other to the death - or is that a result of the fall? This world is beautiful, but also terribly unforgiving. Is the Lord heartbroken over a creation of such violence? Or is it some kind of an enjoyable, cosmic drama to Him? A beautiful piece of art, a complete picture. Strokes of shadow painted with death, starvation and pain. Swaths of light painted with newborns playing and leaps of joy. I believe CS Lewis once made the point that something cannot be infinitely good if it does not also have the potential to be infinitely bad. Such seems to be the case with man and creation.
I have to believe the misery of man and animal breaks the Lord's heart. When death is no more and the lion can lay with the lamb - how sweet it will be.