In Genesis 8, the LORD assured Noah that “while the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease." This promise has a direct bearing on the lives and fortunes of the creatures which God made to populate and flourish upon the earth. Some creatures live for long lifespans while others live for days.
Their days are numbered.
The calculation of population statistics in the natural world reveals that the earth would struggle to accommodate the voracious appetites of many bugs and ocean creatures if they lived any longer lives than they currently do. Yet the African elephant, with its slow maturation and lengthy gestation periods, would be extinct and vast swathes of African habitat would suffer environmental collapse were it not for the LORD’s provision of long life to these magnificent keystone species.
Praise the Lord!