Look at the birds

[I wrote this for my Women's group at church.]

"Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them." Matt 6:26

"As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." Genesis 8:22

I take my son for a walk every day the temperate is above 50 degrees. We see cars and trucks and flowers and birds. We always see birds. My son points his little, almost-two-year-old finger up in the sky at those soaring, chirping creatures and exclaims: "birr, birr!"

And I reply: "That's right, Will. Birds! Look at them! You know, if God cares for the birds, how much more does He care for us!?"

It rolls off my tongue, like the memory verse I recited in Sunday school growing up: "Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them" (Matt. 6:26).

But it wasn't until recently that God's care for even the birds really reached my heart.

When I'm not pointing out trucks or acknowledging the dog that Will and I just strolled past on our walk, I use the time to think: I think about the godly woman I know with breast cancer who just can't seem to catch a break. I think about our dear friends whose son has undergone several surgeries and hospital procedures and he's not even two. I think about my own mother, whose 16-year battle with brain cancer ended just over a year ago.

I think, and I grapple. I somehow feel the need to make myself okay with these situations, to see them and see God and not feel a conflict in my soul. God, are you really faithful? Are your promises really true?

And then a bird flies overhead.

"Look at the birds," He whispers.

Looking at the birds brings me back to the basics, those things I too often take for granted that signify God's unchanging faithfulness: the dawning of the sun each day, the turning of the seasons, the birds that my son and I will undoubtedly see every time we go for a walk.

I may not "come to terms" with every difficult situation my loved ones and I face here in the flesh. 

But my gracious God has given me some marvelous assurances of His steadfast faithfulness, even when my situation at hand is hard to understand.

He is faithful.

If my soul is ever tempted to doubt it, may He graciously lift my eyes toward the sky, to see the sun by morning and the moon by night and to consider for a moment those soaring, worryless creatures that He lovingly sustains.

Whether enjoying an afternoon walk with my two year old, or grappling with the sickness, pain, and death of this life, may I never forget to look up and do as Christ said.

May I always remember to look at the birds.