The Birds

May 1st 2010

There must be at least 50 birds in my back yard at this very moment.  I filled the bird feeder just about 30 minutes ago they all showed up.  We live in what amounts to an oasis in the desert.  There are small black birds, yellow headed blackbirds, finches, and some other little bird out there.  All of them are about 4-5 inches tall.  They sound amazing.  At the moment they are on the ground covering the area under the feeder like a singing blanket, picking up all of the birdseed they knocked to the ground.  Every now and then something will scare them and they all fly off together in one loud flock.  Then moments later, a few at a time, the brave ones return first.  Then within minutes they all return.

It is interesting to me to think of how they just fly around, getting their next meal from wherever they find it.  Sometimes from one of us who put it out there in a feeder.  If I didn’t fill that feeder today they would have found food somewhere, maybe at another feeder, or they would have had to look a little harder.  I do know one thing however, I am glad to fill that feeder out there because I get so much joy watching them flourish because I do it.  Such a simple thing for me to do, give something away that I have so they can flourish.  Yet I am getting joy at the same time, amazing really.

How often do we do that for each other?  How often do we give away something we have knowing the other person is going to flourish because of it?  There is something we who are in Christ have that anyone we give it to will flourish because they have obtained it.  With those birds it was food.  With people the thing they flourish most with when they are given it is genuine love, that love which comes through Christ.  When we give another person that they will flourish.  They might get scared and run, they might even take a flock of others with them, eventually however they will see that we are different because of our love.  That is how God reached us, through love.  That is how we will reach the world, through love.