Use your imagination to see--in this brown blob on top of a shudder on our porch in the mountains-- a little nest of four baby swallows. Clearly, this is the worst picture in the history of the world, but if you could see it, they are adorable...and getting too big and fat for their little nest. It won't be long before they fly the coop--surely in the next day or two.
As we sit on the porch, the mama and daddy swallow continuously swoop in and out with morsels of food. About every minute or two, the babies will suddenly start chirping vociferously as one of their parents flies in with a bite to eat. Within a few seconds, they are off again, looking for the next bit of food for their babies.
We love watching the mama and daddy swoop and dip and dive in the sky just off our porch and catch all kinds of insects to feed their little guys. I'm telling you, these parents are a hardworking pair. Since we've been here, neither mom nor dad rests in the nest more than a few seconds. I always thought being a bird would be glorious--all that flying and soaring in the wild blue yonder. But I'm learning that being a bird parent can be a real grind (hmm, sound familiar?!). These two feed their brood and then dart back out to find their next repast. Over and over and over again.
Just this morning, Preyer watched one of the parents swoop in with a beetle...only to see the beetle somehow escape in the handoff to one of the babies. The undaunted mama, however, immediately rushed off the nest in hot pursuit of that poor beetle. I don't think it ended well for the beetle. Man, it's tough being so low on the food chain.
But it's also relentless work being a mama or daddy bird. I'm going to stop complaining about having to cook and clean up three meals a day...try not just cooking but capturing a thousand (at least) meals a day. Boy, I sure hope those babies thank them. No question about it, it's tough work being a parent.
But all this reminded me of Jesus' words about birds. Don't you love that our Lord uses everyday, commonplace objects and events to teach us deep spiritual truths? As C.S. Lewis once wrote: "God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not. He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it." I love that--God created birds and mountains and butterfly bushes and chocolate. He likes it all and said it was good! And He wants us to learn from that which He has created.
Jesus tells us to trust God in all things and not to worry, and I love that He uses the birds as an example: "Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow and reap and store in barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth more than the birds?...How little faith you have!" (Matt.6:26,30)
So simple, but so profound. Now granted, the birds are working their little tails off, but they are not wringing their little wings in worry and anxiety! They aren't storing up and saving some beetles for a rainy day. Nope, they just busily go about their business of providing food for their young ones and all the while their Creator continues to provide a limitless supply of insects and all that they need for each day's sustenance.
I guess that's something I've learned from the birds today--yes, God calls us to work. But not to worry. We work busily with our hands--but at the same time we have rest in our hearts because we place the full weight of our burdens upon our Heavenly Father.
Will we trust Him or not? Will we choose to worry, essentially insisting that God is not trustworthy and not capable of meeting our needs? Or we will choose to trust Him and His plans and His ways?
One final weekend thought on this from good old Martin Luther: "You see, He is making the birds our schoolmasters and teachers. It is a great and abiding disgrace to us that in the Gospel a helpless sparrow should become a theologian and a preacher to the wisest of men. We have as many teacher and preachers as there are birds in the air. Their living example is an embarrassment to us. Whenever you listen to a nightingale, therefore, you are listening to an excellent preacher...It is as if he were saying, 'I prefer to be in the Lord's kitchen. He has made heaven and earth, and He Himself is the cook and the host. Every day He feeds and nourishes innumerable little birds out of His hand.'"
Thank You, Lord, for the gift of birds and all that You teach us even through these little, graceful creatures, especially the lesson that we are to work...but not to worry. Help us to trust You as our cook, our host, our Provider, our Sustainer, our Deliverer, and our Redeemer. If You've got the sparrows and the swallows (and You do)...You've surely got us.
To God be the glory.
No comments:
Post a Comment