The other night, Laurie and I watched a PBS Nature documentary entitled, Cold Warriors: Wolves and Buffalo. A photographer and his crew traveled to Wood Buffalo National Park in the northern Canadian plains, where the wolves and the buffalo roam. (My apologies.) It concerns how wolves and buffalo interact, which is starkly black and white. The buffalo are there to provide food for the wolves. Most of the documentary is about a wolf pack, its hunting, and the raising of its pups. The wolves take down slower buffalo and especially calves, who aren’t big enough to defend themselves, nor do they have the speed and energy to outlast them on a chase. It is pretty standard Nature fare, and, of course, we all root for the prey.
However, one incident in the documentary caused me to sit up and take notice. As usual, the pack is chasing a herd, looking for an opportunity to take one down. Suddenly, one wolf takes off at full speed. He races past the buffalo herd and keeps running. The videographer can’t tell where the wolf is going from his position and has no idea why or where the wolf is running. The action is photographed from a helicopter. The wolf runs for quite a distance. A few other wolves join him. Wolves don’t possess exceptional long-distance vision. So, what caused this wolf to take off like a racehorse?
The helicopter finally finds the reason. The wolf found two buffalo. The other wolves caught up, and we see them hanging around the buffalo with no aggressive action at all from prey or predator. It’s like both groups are, figuratively speaking, hanging around the water cooler. Eventually, the narrator tells us that one buffalo just died, and the wolves then feasted on his carcass.
I immediately thought of the Book of Job, where the Lord asks Job,
“Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in their thicket? Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God for help, and wander about for lack of food?” (Job 38:39–41).1
This biblical truth should astound us. The Lord hunts prey for lions? We tend to believe these animals just do what they do. To imagine that God is actively involved in feeding all of the lions on earth doesn’t come into our thinking. We surmise He just can’t be bothered by such things. However, we are instructed that God is more immensely powerful than we think He is. After all, Jesus upholds all the universe by the word of His power.
“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3a).
The universe? Gravity, time, space, and all the rest? Have you ever tried to understand quantum physics? Jesus makes all the impossible realities in creation function although how absolutely baffles us.
So, with all of the extraordinary things that the Lord does in creation, He hunts buffalo, too.
The Lord’s ability and power are incomprehensible to us, and they should be. However, it’s wonderful to consider that this amazing God also loves us and provides a way for us to become sons and daughters in His eternal kingdom. Yes, it is true. Jesus, who knows everything perfectly, upholds the universe, loves us and died for us.
Lord God, our words cannot express the wonders of who You are and what You can do. Praise Your name forever.
1All Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (2016). Crossway Bibles.
Gif courtesy tumblr.
JLThomson's Blog 
My father-in-law explained that the universe is very mathematically precise in layout and composition. Gravitational pulls, energy output, the speed of light, the whole enchilada. It just amazed me. And I had not considered how God hunts the buffalo. *smile* But this is a great example. There is no part of his creation which is beneath his attention and care.
I hadn’t considered it, either, until we watched that PBS Nature documentary. :–) Concerning the speed of light, as I wrote this, I delved a bit–later deleted–into quantum entanglement which means that two different quanta can simultaneously change, with no time passing at all. Einstein rejected that, calling it “spooky action at a distance,” because even things traveling at light speed require time. But physicists have proven it to be true. It amazes me–and gives me joy–to think that Jesus upholds all that quantum world on which our reality is based in ways our scientists cannot comprehend.