Why did God bother with penguins anyway?

My wife and I watched March of the Penguins this weekend, and I thought it was very good. If you haven’t seen it, it is about the 70 mile journey emperor penguins make each year to breed. I doubt that this was its purpose, but it is a good analogy for the self-sacrifice that is required in marriage to have a family.

One question that I asked though is, why did God even create these penguins? If God has a purpose for all he does (which he does), then what is his purpose for penguins? There they are, living in what is seemingly the most uninhabitable climate on the planet, and I can’t see any way in which human life would be worse if they were not there. Buy yet God has a plan for having them there. I am sure a biologist would be appalled and have a wonderful explanation for their existence, but until they send me a nasty email, I guess I’ll be in the dark.

An answer that I have come up with though, helps me to understand and appreciate the providence of our God. Say that there was a couple struggling to adjust to married life. Maybe they are trying to balance how to raise a child and build a family and not go crazy. Now say this couple watched this movie, and it fostered a renewed dedication to family and service to each other. Wouldn’t that be all the reason God would need to put penguins on this earth? When I consider God’s abounding love for each and every one of us, I think that sounds reasonable. I believe God would go to the ends of the earth to improve the life of any individual he has ever created. After all he would have died on the Cross to save even one of us. In that perspective, creating a bunch of penguins just to help one person, doesn’t seem that extreme at all.