Birds of a Feather: On Redness and Awareness

We let our bird feeder run empty over the summer as our only visitors in that season were crowds of greedy squirrels who could empty the feeder in an afternoon, jumping precariously from the railing to the swinging feeder like contestants on the American Ninja Warrior show.  And the squirrels' perennial audience enjoying the spectacle were the grey silent doves lined up on the railing, waiting to feast afterwards. 

We filled the feeder this week.  Within a day, we noticed finches, chickadees, a Rufus-sided towhee, and a cardinal.  

On this rainy, grey December morning, a bright red cardinal on the feeder caught my eye.  His brilliant color stood in sheer contrast with the dreary appearance around him, not in an arrogant "look at me" kind of way.  But as if to greet me with a "there you are!"  The sight of this cheery bird made me smile.

 

Does this bird wonder: "God, I don't know why You put me here.  Or why You made me so red?"

God's purposes are always far beyond our radar.  We do not always face valiant battles with fire-breathing dragons, but ordinary days that are riddled with His divine appointments that we rarely notice.

Because this bird is a reminder -- a wake up call -- to a redeeming we cannot imagine.  God is trying to get our attention.  Not just to bless us with His splendor, but to be aware of His Presence.

God created.  God created beauty.  And He created in us the capacity to recognize beauty, to be awed by it, and to respond to it.  There is good news after all.  And that is the gospel natural and essential in all of life.

Sometimes God sends momentary beauty to cheer us on -- like a fleeting patch of redness on the canvas of our day.

And sometimes He reminds us through it to

     be that cardinal 

                        for someone else.

How can I encourage someone today?

Not look at me,

   but there you are!

Those fly-bys

    and lingerings that say,

                        I see you. 

         You are not alone.

God makes us red 

        on His paths for us

and aware of unexpected opportunities

     in blessing others

at a moment's notice.

Sometimes we 

       don't even notice

      how God is using us

         or His faithfulness

         carefully colored in.

I could see the cardinal.

I don't think he could see me.

As he flew off,

   he had no idea

   his impact on my heart.

Look at the birds of the air:

they neither sow nor reap

nor gather into barns,

and yet your heavenly Father

                    feeds them.

Are you not of more value than they?

                     Matthew 6. 26

Be that cardinal.

Waiting, Watching And Being Surprised

We are in the season when both the expected and unexpected are literally dropped on our front doorsteps. The ordered, the unordered, the backordered, even sometimes the disordered, surprise us by their swift appearance.   Suddenly, a package appears.  And often I never even see the delivery truck.

Yesterday morning, I looked out the front door and remarked out loud, "I don't know if we are expecting anything today."

My words hung in the air.  That sounded like a rather defeatist attitude.  If we are not watching, we miss out.

Unlike just the delivery of a Target package, God responds even to our unspoken needs, that which we didn't recognize we needed, that for which we had no words, even for what we didn't consider praying about. God surprises us by His wonders.

Look, it's not just a box to watch for,

                but a day to be unwrapped.

 

Look what God has done.  Trust in what He is doing.  See what He redeems.

There are no ordinary days in His created order.  Nothing but nothing that God cannot use.

Wait, watch, and be surprised.  We can never know what lies within.  We have yet to realize His divine appointments.  What is revealed may be something we desperately need or a special delivery to encourage someone else in our spheres.  Sometimes a deep mystery is unveiled.  But what is always revealed is His steadfast love which cannot be contained.  And His faithfulness that exceeds our wildest imaginations.

Am I living in anticipation today?  Am I expecting anything?   Not that "God will show up" like a package on the doorstep.  He has already arrived.  He already resides.  He is already with me, guiding, providing, and surprising me by His goodness.  

This is the LORD's doing;

it is marvelous in our eyes.

                  Psalm 32. 7

Wear Something New

 Thanksgiving is a great holiday of feasting together with friends and family and imperfect people, of which we all are.

Wear something new into an old situation.  Enlarge your wardrobe.  Reach deep for the unexpected.

Tie on that red scarf of courage. Dress in layers, grace upon grace, encouragement upon encouragement, unexpected and caring responses in volatile situations.

And underneath it all -- because it will show through the most--  put on love.

 

Don't leave home without it.

This is the day

It was a hard upward struggle yesterday afternoon.  I had chosen to run my hilly course, so familiar now that my brain doesn't even have to think about the turns in the road.

The asphalt was broken into chunks in places.  Cracks appeared like a strange map across the pavement, leading to nowhere we have been before.  Potholes gave birth to even more potholes.  Even the edges of the road were beginning to disintegrate into the gravel.

And on my heart were so many people I know right now who are struggling with life, choices they have made, choices they never made, decisions and incidents beyond their control.  We are all falling apart, it appears.  But why are we surprised in this fallen, broken world.

My head was down, contemplating the grey, shattered road, trying not to trip.

After a particularly hard ascent, in which I thought about stopping and just walking the rest of the route, leaves began to appear beneath my feet, thousands and thousands of leaves, so deep that I couldn't help but notice them.  Indeed, I was shuffling through them, a myriad of shapes and colors and textures,  like every created day of our lives, heaped up into something beautiful.

And then, I raised my eyes from the hard broken places.  God was trying to get my attention.

My mother had a condition called synesthesia in which when she heard or played music, she saw colors, as if her senses blended seamlessly into each other.  When I looked up and saw the fellowship of trees clamoring around me, I could almost hear them singing. 

Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the LORD, for He comes... Psalm 96. 12

...the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.  Isaiah 55. 12

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the wonder before me literally stopped me in my tracks.  It was a sanctuary. This is what glory of the LORD must resemble in some small way.  And how much do we miss because we are not looking, acknowledging, recognizing, not just His hand, but His Presence all around us?

God designed us to recognize beauty.  God wired us to recognize Him.  God paves our way with His faithfulness.  Even in what we cannot yet see beyond the turns in the road.

This is the LORD's doing;  it is marvelous in our eyes.  This is the day that the LORD has made.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it.  Psalm 118. 23-24

This very day.  Not just in the yesterdays.  Or tomorrow.  But now.

We make a conscious choice to be glad in it, not just on days of blue skies or circumstances favorable in our sight or when we feel like it.  But a grateful heart is observant and doesn't miss a thing, even in what we can't understand.  Because we can trust Him through it.  A glad heart sees things differently, a tool in our toolbox for how we will lead the rest of our lives day by day and be fully equipped to help others.  

Every day that we make a choice to rejoice strengthens us for what is yet to come.  I don't have to know the journey-- nor the outcome --to know God is good and His steadfast love endures forever.  That changes my vision.  That changes my heart. Even in this mess, this broken world, these incessant potholes.

I shuffled through the leaves like the days of my life.  And realized that the trees are still full of them, not one drifts down to join the others that God does not know about it.  His beauty is not just entrenched in the colors of the season or the impenetrably blue sky, but every day.   

The day was just a glimpse of what He has made.  A day that He walks with us.  The uphills don't have to be a battle.  The potholes are mere craters to avoid.  The brokenness is only temporary.  This is not the end of the story.  But right in the midst of His redeeming.

This is marvelous in our eyes.  And we have not even snatched a glimpse yet.

Lingering Inefficiencies

We have reduced so much of life to what we see as practical, useful, and productive.  Stay on task.  Get something done.  Carpe Diem. Don't waste it. 

We have indeed also reduced God in our minds the same way by focusing on His work, His timing, His plans and purposes, His designs, His provisions, and His answers to our prayers -- what is useful and efficient and what we deem as fruitful.

But in that utilitarian view, we miss the wonders.  It is often in the inefficiencies when nothing appears to be happening that we become most aware of the presence of God.  

In God's sight, inefficiencies may not be so insignificant at all.  All through Scripture, God calls His people to listen, to watch, and to wait.  Paying attention is never a waste of time.

God speaks to us in the most unlikely places and unexpected situations.  Our "inefficiencies"-- that pointless task, that waiting for a package that doesn't come, the bread that did not rise, the people who did not show up, an arduous task that deflated like a flat tire -- are sometimes the places of hearing Him more clearly. 

The most frustrating inefficiencies in our day may be the most fruitful part of it.  God's designs linger far beyond our lifetimes or our comprehension.

As a shy little girl, I hung out a lot with my grandmother who lived with us.  God wove deep spiritual growth through those very ordinary moments.  My grandmother was busy from dawn until past my bedtime, and I often wondered if she slept at all.  But she always left an all-present margin for conversation in the quietness of just being together or working side by side.  Her faith in God and His faithfulness to her just kind of bubbled out of her.  

I consciously remember only fragments of what she said to me.  But what lingers --and still impacts me-- was her "inefficient" use of time.  In those little interruptions of mine, wandering into her room with my unceasing questions, she didn't view as disruptions but as scattered intermissions in what she was working on.  And somehow she saw the profound significance in those inopportune moments when she had a myriad of things to do, could have produced that which appeared tangible, and she would have something to show for her day.

Which she did after all, because she gave me her time and attention.  She did her work, but was not distracted from what really mattered.  And that is what I still carry with me.  

A whole new day is stretched out before each one of us, full of appointments, urgencies and big rocks in the middle of our paths.  We want to glorify God, to be faithful, get things done, and fulfill His purposes.  

But we miss the point if we restrict Him to our practical and tangible accomplishments, or limit ourselves to a check-it-off-the-list kind of day. We still need to be responsible and get our work done.  But all the while, God calls us to "Abide with Me" through it.  And that is never an inefficient use of time, work or being, but a joy that lingers and lasts forever.

He is before all things,

and in Him all things

        hold together.

           Colossians 1. 17