“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”” Hebrews 13:5
“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?” Matthew 6:26
He will take care of the birds; he will take care of you.
This morning another bird flew into my house.
Yes, I said another because a year ago I had 3 fly in at the same time and I didn’t know until my dog, Arnie, started barking at the one on the chandelier. I was preoccupied with work and left the door open so Arnie could go in and out. The first time the birds flew in I only saw two, one on the chandelier and the other on the bar cart next to the window. I ran to the back door to fling it open and eventually got the 2 birds I saw out. I closed the door in a sigh of relief. I won’t relieve the story of calling my husband, my mother and freaking out in the middle of the call with my boss. After the two birds left, I went back to work in my office and as I reached a stopping point and was on the phone with my husband, I came around the corner to find another bird popping out of the basket with an extra blanket and throw pillows. I freaked out again. I went through the same hoopla and eventually got the bird out before my husband got home.
You would think after that I would be well versed in the art of not keeping the door open and getting birds to escape your home, but I am not.
This morning, I was lying in bed with the door open finishing up my devotional about to get ready to kick off my day when all a sudden a bird flew into my bedroom into the plantation shutters getting itself stuck. I immediately go into a small panic of crap not again. Knowing I wasn’t supposed to leave the door open.
I open the shutters and shoo the bird out of my room only for him to fly right into another set of shutters, by passing the door that he just came in through. As I watched the bird struggle with the shutters, I closed the rest on the other windows and started to close the doors so that he wouldn’t go into the other rooms or windows. I swing the back door open as wide as it will go. I get my floor swifter to hit on the floor to make sounds to keep it away from the other side of the house and my dog is sitting watching me as if to say, lady you did it again and you still don’t know what to do. I talked to the bird, tried to persuade it to go back out the door by even walking out the door myself. I was trying to bring out my inner Dr. Dolittle, needless to say I am not Dr. Dolittle as hard as I tried.
The bird did not follow my directions, pretty sure that I was scaring him and not helping him. He went in the opposite direction and went to the front door. At which point I ran to the other side of the house and started making noises to try and prevent him from going into other parts of the house. The noises worked because sure enough he took off from the front door back to the same window he was just at, this time he went beak first into the window and fell straight to the ground. In that moment I questioned whether he was stunned or was he dead. I feared that he was dead because I didn’t see his little body move to show signs he was breathing. I was too terrified to touch the bird and put a rocking chair in front of it to prevent Arnie from getting any ideas about trying to go after it. After a while I wanted to take a picture to prove to my husband that he needed to leave work and come get this dead bird and as soon as I moved the chair the bird miraculously came to and started to fly and flew right back into the same window. I started to leave him alone and opened the back door again. I even opened the front door this time to see if he would go that way and he wouldn’t, he was determined to go out that window. The wind caused the front door to close which just left the door that he came in through as his only exit.
I decided that I would make my breakfast and take it to my bedroom and shut the door, leave him in peace to see if he would leave. The shutters in our room were still open so I could see out my window, through the open door to the window where the bird was still trying to figure out how to get out. I watched as he jumped from the window seal to the bar cart, to the ground, to the console table over and over. As I watched the bird in confusion I gave up on him ever leaving my house I decided to focus on some work and after about 30 minutes I came back out to see that I couldn’t find the bird. I didn’t see him fly away but I checked the whole house, and he wasn’t there. He finally figured it out. He made his way back out.
I started thinking as this was going on. Is that how God feels when I go in doors I’m not supposed to go into. He is trying to do things to get my attention to get me out. To talk to me through people, through the Holy Spirit and guide me out and yet I don’t listen. I know in my own life I have been so stubborn that like the bird I have bumped into the same window over and over again. Like the bird I have ran into the window to only knock myself out for a time but like the bird I have been knocked out yet not destroyed.
As I thought about God, I think he would have been calmer when getting my attention, touched me when I knocked myself out but as I think back on the things in my life that he has had to do to get my attention. He sent a youth pastor to tell me that people in my youth group did want me to be there, it was in my head that I wasn’t enough and that they didn’t like me (I didn’t realize it until 10 years later). Save me from being in a car wreck, to hear the Holy Spirit remind me that I need to trust him and chasing a robber only to realize that I have spent my entire life chasing the world instead of the one true God.
Yet during all of the wrong turns in my life God never left me, just like today I never truly left the bird, I was watching him I was just waiting on him to make the move to find the way out. I believe that God tries to get our attention, gives us those moments where we know he is trying to help in our stubbornness, and we can hear it but never listen to it. That is when God becomes silent, he doesn’t leave, he just gets quiet so the words he has already told us will start to echo in our own hearts. So that we believe and truly start to hear the truth.
That is how God is with us.
He tries to guide us, he tries to give us opportunities to get ourselves out of the mess and then he waits on us to find our way out. I picked the verses from Hebrews because in my life I have gone into many wrong houses, especially in the pursuit of money, trying to find ways of being enough and accepted and every time I entered the wrong house God helped me get out and get to a point in my life where I am now content knowing that I am his and his is my Father, my God who will be there with me.
The verse in Matthew is when Jesus is preaching about not worrying. When the bird flew in my house I was worried, in my own life when I am trying to do things my way and not listening to God I am consumed with worry and try to pretend that I can do things in my own strength and the truth is that I can’t do it in my own strength and God will always provide a way.
I still face struggles but now I try and let God lead. I try to listen to him as he leads the way that he is calling me to go.
What is God trying to get your attention to get you out of?
Heavenly Father, I pray that you will continue to lead us and guide us all the days of our lives, especially the days when we are stubborn. Lord you are the light of our lives, help us to depend on you, to listen to you always but especially in those days when we are being stubborn. Show us Lord the areas of our lives that we need to give over to you that you are showing us are hindering us from being close to you and keeping us from your will. Lord love us, guide us, protect us. Thank you for all that you go in our lives. In your son’s name. Amen.