Thirty years ago an Adventist college lecturer challenged me with this thought:

"You say you see God in nature. Look at the fanastic detail in the creation of the snake's fang. But the snake's fang is only used to kill. So nature teaches you that the God who make the snake's fang is a killer."

Unfortunately, the lecturer didn't give his explanation for why God created the snake's fang. We had to work it out ourselves. The was the start of a 30-year-long faith experience.

I satisfied myself that the snake's fang was a special case. The snake had been cursed for its part in causing humanity to sin (Genesis 3). As part of that curse, the snake would be feared by humanity (Genesis 3:15). Giving the snake a fang, I thought, was how God fulfilled that prophecy of making us fear the snake.

But the mosquito...

However, there was a similar problem with the mosquito. It wasn't especially cursed. Yet it had a marvellous piece of creative work in how it sucked blood from its victims

The only purpose of the blood sucking mechanism is to suck blood from victims. That causes pain... and death. So how could it be explained?

For many years I used to say, "One of the first questions I want to ask God in the resurrection is why he made the mosquito."

An act of faith

When I think about it, I could have had a different reaction. I could have said that the mosquito stinger was absolute proof that the Creator of the mosquito had evil intentions. I could have used mosquito problem to abandon Christianity as not true.

What I did, however, was accept by faith that there was a good purpose. And I was prepared to accept it by faith until the resurrection.

However, I didn't need faith that lasted until the resurrection. It only needed to last 30 years.

New Zealand killer

Even before the Adventist lecturer challenged me about the snake's fang, another lecturer had provided the answer. However, I didn't see that that was the answer for 30 years.

In my first year at Avondale College (the Australian Adventist university), a lecturer told as about a bird that killed sheep in New Zealand.

The interesting thing about this bird (whose name I forget) is that it was a vegetarian before sheep were introduced to New Zealand. However, the plant which was its food supply became extinct as farming took over more of the New Zealand wilderness.

Left without its food supply, this vegetarian bird had to turn to another food source. It started killing sheep and eating them as an alternate food supply.

I knew the story quite well (even if I forgot the name of the bird). However, it took me thirty years to see that that was the key to my mosquito problem.

I live in a beautiful, sub-tropical part of Australia. But mosquitos here can be a problem -- spreading Ross River Fever and other diseases. I know that that wasn't why God created the mosquito. That wasn't its purpose, but what was it?

Then suddenly after 30 years I realised the mosquito was probably like that New Zealand bird. The mosquito's stinger was probably used to extract its food from a plant -- a plant we've now made extinct. Without its food supply, the mosquito started stinging animals to get their blood as an alternate food supply.

A faith experience

It has been a good experience for me -- both to have a solution and to not have a solution for the mosquito problem. Not having a solution gave me thirty years of trusting God. Now having a solution gives me a greater understanding of God.

The mosquito problem is one of only many problems we face when trying to find purpose in life. I suggest the way to handle most of those other problems is the same way as how I handled the mosquito problem:

Trust God... and wait for him to provide the answer when it is best for you to know.

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Author: Phil Ward.