herons and hummingbirds

Renée Antrosio – July 18, 2023 3 Comments

I want to do a good job. I like to get it right. I prefer to be on time. I want brilliant insights, persuasive writing, and conclusive outcomes. 

Instead, God sends me birds. 

A cardinal explores the lilac bush by my front door.  A hummingbird hovers, staring at me through the window. The robins chase me off the porch, dive-bombing when I try to eat my breakfast near their nest. 

“Consider the birds—do you think they worry about their existence? Matthew 6:26a (TPT)

Apparently, it’s Heron Week at the little local lakes- magnificent great blues, black-crowned night-herons hiding in the trees, and adorable little greens that startle when I walk along the shoreline. I feel a compulsion to be working. Checking my email. Doing something. Be more spiritual. Accomplish something. 

They don’t plant or reap or store up food, yet your heavenly Father provides them each with food. Aren’t you much more valuable to your Father than they? Mt. 6:26b (TPT)

What if my job today is to notice? To be awed. To stare through the binoculars, amazed at my good fortune to observe these splendid birds. Sometimes I forget that I am valuable because I am created and loved by God, not because of what work I accomplish. Unlike the birds, I think if I’m not doing something, I am falling behind. 

So, which one of you by worrying could add anything to your life? Mt. 6:27 (TPT)

As I tromped along the railroad tracks between the lakes, the morning glory weeds, teasel, and wild chicory blooms called out for my attention. Beautiful blues and iridescent whites. So different from the flowers I’ve planted in my yard. God’s garden, these weeds. 

Look at all the beautiful flowers of the field. They don’t work or toil, and yet not even Solomon in all his splendor was robed in beauty like one of these! So if God has clothed the meadow with hay, which is here for such a short time and then dried up and burned, won’t he provide for you the clothes you need—you of little faith? Mt 6:28b-30 (TPT)

I think, I worry, therefore I am. Today, I am accomplishing less. I feel myself fretting, internal dissonance. I was listening to the birds, but the mowers are louder. How do we quiet those voices that say we must produce perfectly? I am barely a birdwatcher. I justify it as exercise. 

Surrender your anxiety. Be still and realize that I am God. I am God above all the nations, and I am exalted throughout the whole earth. Psalm 46:10 (TPT)

Be still and know. Be still. Be.

May we notice the birds of the air and of the water, may we consider the ditch lilies in all their glory, and may we know that we are that much more valuable to our Father, God above the nations, exalted throughout the earth. -Renée