(Part 1)

JBTM Daniel I. Block
85
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when He placed the skies above,
when the fountains of the ocean gushed forth,
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when He set a limit for the sea
so that the waters would not violate His command,
when He laid out the foundations of the earth.
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I was a skilled craftsman beside Him.
I was His delight every day, always rejoicing before Him.
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I was rejoicing (celebrating) in His inhabited world,
delighting in the human race.
And this is what wise people do, that, those who have recognized, “The fear (trusting awe)
of the Lord is the first principle of wisdom” (Prov 1:7; 9:10; 15:33; Job 28:28; Ps 111:10).
Observing the oddities in nature causes us to worship God.
Second, we should learn from this lizard and start celebrating the incongruities
in our own life. If we are invited to learn from the ants (Prov 6:6–11), why should we not
learn from lizards and geckos. The folks at Geico Auto Insurance company certainly think
we can learn from these tiny reptiles. As a class, their commercials are among my favorites.
They always make me smile. But let’s think for a moment about how this text fragment
relates to life.
Can you imagine what the lizard was thinking when he found himself in the king’s
palace? I can imagine a lot of questions he might have asked himself.
“What sort of box is this?”
“Is there anything here to eat?”
“How do I get out of here? Where’s the door?”
“Since I am stuck here, how do creatures behave in this place?”
“How did I get here? How did this happen?”
I am sure in the sage’s mind it was the last question that amused him. How do geckos
land in the palaces of kings? Whatever the answer, a lowly creature found himself in the
company of the highest official in the land.
Have you ever experienced this sort of serendipity, where you have found yourself in a
totally unexpected situation? In our day, we inoculate ourselves against such surprises by
sheer ambition and by scrupulous planning. For decades at our high school graduations we
have sung or heard songs like Rogers and Hammerstein’s “Climb ev’ry Mountain,” written
for The Sound of Music in 1959:
Climb every mountain, Search high and low
Follow every byway, Every path you know
Climb every mountain, Ford every stream
Follow every rainbow, Till you find your dream
A dream that will need, All the love you can give
Every day of your life, For as long as you live.