An old lady was trying to cross a busy road on day but just couldn't seem to get a time when there was no traffic coming. A young man who had been watching her for a while, trundled over and said, 'Excuse me, dear, but, there's a zebra crossing just down the road.' She looked at him, with a mixture of bewilderment and frustration and replied, 'Well I hope he's having better luck than I am.' Yes I know it's one of the oldest jokes known to man but I guess God must have had a bit of a sense of humour when He created zebras. I mean, on first appearance, they do stand out from the crowd a little bit and you would hardly think they would be easily camouflaged against their greatest predator, the lion. But strange as it may seem, because a lion is colour blind, it has great difficulty seeing a zebra which remains completely motionless and if it does attack a herd of the beasts, when they all run off in different directions, it can be extremely confusing with all these black and white lines running everywhere. Also if you are faced with a whole herd of the animals, you might just think, with all those stripes facing you, that it is just one gigantic animal and maybe think twice before attacking. Though somehow, I'm not so sure that lions are so easily confused or put of their lunch.So the question is, are zebras black and white stripes, white with black stripes or black with white stripes? Most scientists appear to agree that they are indeed the latter with some animals having slight touches of brown in their colouring and all of them having a white underbelly which also helps in camouflage. And, in case you didn't notice, the stripes have white a distinctive pattern too with the head, neck and body consisting of vertical stripes and the rear end having horizontal stripes. There is also a scientific theory that the stripes also confuse the visual system of the blood sucking Tsetse fly. Zebras also have wonderful hearing, a great sense of smell and taste and of course, like their lookalike, the horse, have eyes at the side of the head to give them all round vision and so are well equipped to spot danger the minute it appears. Most experts also believe they can see in colour, though I'm not sure how they can completely prove such a hypothesis without actually asking a zebra and I guess communication is still some way off. However, I suppose it does help the animal to see the colour of the lion that wants to invite it out for lunch! There are several different species of zebra but I suppose, like you, when I see one, it's just a zebra to me and even though man has made some serious attempts to domesticate the animal, it is still best suited to the wild outdoors, though I'd hardly call it a wild animal in the predator sense of the word and I reckon the zebras in the zoo, that I saw a few weeks ago, can shout whatever abuse they like across at the lions!
How well equipped they are to continue living on a daily basis. And how well equipped we should be as Christians if we follow Paul's advice in Ephesisans 6 when he tells us to 'Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.' So today, as we end another month and many of our church activities end for a while, it is easy to be vulnerable. So ask yourself, are you wearing the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness , the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit. And are your feet fitted with the gospel of peace. God took no shortcuts with the zebra and He gives us all we need to grow in our faith. It's really all black and white.
