Consider the Hummingbirds
I’m a worrier – I always have been and will always struggle with the issue. Even when my life seems to be sailing along calmly, I can find someone else to worry about—like my 59-year-old diabetic brother who was lai
d off in January and continues a job search.
My husband and I are blessed to be spending two weeks in my sister’s condo on the San Miguel River in western Colorado. As kids, we started coming to this area almost 50 years ago, and now she has a vacation home here where we continue to make memories with a new generation. This trip, it is just the two of us, and I packed a virtual suitcase full of ‘frets’ to mull over.
Our first day here, I found an empty hummingbird feeder, cleaned it up, and read on-line how to make the perfect liquid concoction. Within a couple of hours, we had dozens of visitors, and I have been enchanted with them ever since.
I find myself mentally ‘willing’ more of them to come. There is plenty here! Come, feast and refresh yourselves. “Tweet” your friends! As long as I am here, we will never run out. Don’t worry.
I spent my devotion time the next morning doing lectio with a familiar passage from Matthew 6, which is one of the ones my grandmother (also a worrier, but the most faith-filled woman I have ever known) began to help me memorize when I was about 7 years old.
Jesus reminds us to “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? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?” As I sat on the balcony watching the hummingbirds, I thought of all the love I have directed their way, yet it pales in the light of God’s love and provision for me.
And sitting by beautiful flowers while overlooking majestic mountains and the river, I read on: “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?”
Although my grandmother through her words and life experiences taught me that I may not always get exactly what I want or think I need, she made sure I understood the promise of verse 6:33:
But strive first for the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things [He knows you need] will be given to you as well.
Being here in this special part of the kingdom of God has reminded me of my grandmother’s wisdom and allowed me to soak up that immeasurable, incomprehensible, all-sufficient love He desires to share with me. I must find a way to take some of this ‘space’ back to the North Texas August with me.
Peace,
Karen
