Yesterday was a very rainy day, so I was quite intrigued with how busily the little birds were eating at our backyard feeders, not seeming to care about the weather. Perhaps the cool and wet day increased their demand for energy and so feeding was a bit more urgent.
As I went out to refill the feeders, I suddenly noticed that one little female Cassin Finch was not flying away with all the rest. In fact, it wasn’t moving at all, just standing on top of a birdhouse with its eyes closed and face raised to the light rain.
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| View from window |
At first, I wondered whether birds just enjoy the feel of rain. It almost seemed lost in sensation of something that made it oblivious to me being only a few feet away. I was able to sneak back into the house to get my camera, take a shot through the window just so I had something in case it was gone when I returned, and then snapped some more pics as I again snuck closer to its resting place. I was overwhelmed with the wonder that a bird may actually enjoy something like the soft rain falling on its head.
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| First shot before getting too close |
As I saw the same bird come back a couple more times during the day, just sitting with its eyes closed like that, I suddenly wondered if it could be the mate of one of the dead birds we have found in the yard. I was immediately overwhelmed with grief. What happens to these little creatures when something happens to one of their family? I know that God sees every sparrow that falls. Does he see the ones that live?
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| Lost in something |
And then I wondered if the tears that betrayed me saw this as a picture of me? Could the heartaches of one child of God look like this, that the Father in heaven sees a heart lifted up to him in the rain and cares very deeply for what I feel? Could my experience of loss look like this, an overwhelmed creature stopping everything, even in the midst of the continued flurry of activity all around it, and looking heavenward because looking anywhere else was simply too painful?
This morning, these thoughts and feelings seemed just as fresh as the day before, so I had to look up the passages where Jesus talks about our worth in contrast to that of a few small birds. Luke’s version quotes Jesus as saying,
Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.[1]
For anyone who thinks that “worth issues” are a contemporary creation, Jesus was dealing with such things as he shared the good news and encouraged his disciples in the cost of following him. No matter what happens to us because of our faith in Jesus Christ, we are to see ourselves as having the greatest worth of all God’s creatures.
This means that, when Jesus said, “not one of them is forgotten before God,” and, “you are of more value than many sparrows,” we cannot ever think that we would be forgotten by God our heavenly Father in our suffering for Jesus’ sake.
Matthew records Jesus as saying, “And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.”[2] When we also add this to the, “you are of more value than many sparrows,” we are urged to think of our potential “falling to the ground” in persecution as far more significant to God than when we find a dead bird in our yard and wonder which neighborhood cat is the culprit.[3]
When Jesus said, “Fear not,” he meant even in relation to the threat of death.[4] In other words, the worst thing we could face as followers of Christ is persecution. Persecution brings with it the possibility of martyrdom. Death is scary. Jesus knows that. So he picks a little creature that was treated as almost without value, tells us how God even has concern for the smallest of his creatures, clarifies that we are of “more value” than even the least of his animals, so we should never question our worth when facing persecution and the threat of death.
This brought to mind what Paul said about such things, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”[5] I realized that we have so little sense of “the glory that is to be revealed to us,” and what it means to our heavenly Father to complete his work of making us like his Son, that we don’t feel the contrast Jesus is making between us and a few sparrows. What God will one day complete in bringing to himself a people in the image and likeness of his Son is so glorious in every way that even the worst suffering and death experienced by the children of God is almost not worth comparing to the coming glory. We are simply of too much worth to God for him to fail to do what he has promised.
This whole emotional encounter with a little bird in the rain is a most surprising picture of God seeing me in everything I go through. It is getting quite easy for him to number the hairs of my head as I age,[6] but the point is still there. If he concerns himself with the number of hairs on our heads, and a few sparrows in the marketplace, or a tiny bird falling to its death, how much more will he be with us in intimate concern as we suffer for his sake.
Tears immediately come to my eyes as I replay how I found that little Cassin Finch standing in the rain in such stark contrast to all the other pairs of finches flying around our feeders fighting to get a turn to eat. I now realize that, as Father made sure I would see this, and multiple times through the rest of the afternoon, even this would affirm that I am of greater value than I know, and what is going on with me matters more to him than I could possibly feel about what was going on with that little finch.
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| Head tucked in and all alone |
And that means that, even the underlying reasons that this little wet bird would impact me so profoundly are known to him, and one day he will wipe away all such tears and their reasons for being there.
© 2020 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
[1] Luke 12:6-7
[2] Matthew 10:29 (note: I
think the difference in phrasing in the different gospel-writers could be because
the human authors are summarizing longer teaching sessions, highlighting
whichever wording stood out to them, or compiling into one account what they
may have heard multiple times as Jesus taught the same things to different
groups of people, phrasing things slightly differently on each occasion)
[3] We have asked our
little mutt Finnian if he thinks he is supposed to protect our yard from birds
but he looks at us like he doesn’t know what we are talking about.
[4] This is in the context
of both Matthew 10:26-33 and Luke 12:1-12.
[5] Romans 8:18
[6] Matthew 10:30 and Luke
12:7 speak of God even knowing the number of hears on our heads in order to
affirm that, if he cares to know such things as that, how could he ever relate
to our suffering and potential martyrdom with no interest at all.
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