Look At The Birds

I wonder how much of my life I have lived being color-blind.

My soul knows that the cares of this life can camouflage even the most vibrant of God’s creations and gifts. It’s clear to me that I’m blinded by my own cares on too many occasions.

Weights that can only be identified when I’m in stillness before Him cast Light on my sins of collecting and controlling – two deceptive actions that become dressed in the attractive word of “strength.”

But my strength is no strength at all.

So how do I receive His joy, which is my strength? Jesus always replies in His grace and my graceful answer is flying overhead.

A patriotic flutter of color by my resident blue jays and cardinals draws me close to the One who sees me, freeing me from myself with His words that paint a picture…

“Look at the birds of the air…” He says. And I can feel myself let go…

In His compassion and abundance, He speaks. ”I care for them…how much more will I care for you?”

These birds that glide and hop from limb-to-limb while serenading their Creator and the One who rescues me time and again from myself are God’s gifts and reminders that He is with me and that His freedom flies all around.

If I look up, these reminders wake my heart to remember that I own this freedom.

This solution-in-the-sky for a sleepy-soul was placed here by the hands of Heaven so that minds would awaken and untangle at the same blessed time.

My cavern-of-concerns is brimming with uncertainties about parenting, finances, the care of loved ones, the suffering of loved ones, physical pains, broken relationships, tension in relationships, callings in life, and the list doesn’t end anytime soon.

Flesh naturally searches for the answers and slightly panics. I often think: Is there a concern I should be concerned about but am missing?

Then, I hear His song, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” (Matthew 6:26-27)

When I forget about the character of God then I forget about the sovereign care of Him too, and that births the lie that I am on my own.

But birds, these beautiful reminders, they don’t obsess about how they will take care of themselves and their fragile families. They don’t even give a second thought about the future. Instead, they glide through the present, trusting and resting in the One who orchestrates the minutia of their lives so they can be free to fly. So we can be free to fly.