Humming Birds

I love humming birds, that whole fly forward and backwards thing is amazing, they are one of God’s really neat creations. Anyway I had a hummingbird trapped in my garage. I opened the door wide open and waited for the bird to fly out but nothing doing. I even tried to shoo it out waving my arms (looking much like a crazy man) but that didn’t work either. The bird just stayed on top of the garage door, refusing to move.

Every time the bird would try and fly, its instincts told it to fly upwards, so it would skate all over the ceiling, buzzing its wings furiously against it, chirping all the way until it would tire and come to rest on the door over the wide open area to escape. I left it alone for a while to see if it would eventually discover the open door, but each time it took off to fly, it flew upwards and skated on the ceiling like before. It was frustrating, almost tragic, to watch it sit over the open door, catching its breath, oblivious to the fact that freedom lay only a few inches below. I finally succeeded in freeing it by literally sweeping the hummingbird off the ceiling with a broom. It took a number of tries, and it hit the door jam on the way out, but it flew off unharmed.

Imagine yourself as the bird were that bird…(humor me for a moment) I am trapped, and I am trying to free myself the only way I know how, when this giant comes after me, waving its arms and screaming shoo, shoo. This giant then begins so sweep at me, swatting at me with a broom. I don’t see that what the giant wants is what is best for me; indeed, he is the only one who can set me free. Finally he succeeds and sweeps me off the ceiling and I slam into the wall, and then out through this invisible barrier. It is only then, in my attempt to recover from that trauma, that I find I am suddenly free.

OK you’re no longer a humming bird…..It occurred to me that this kind of parallels our experience with God, he is the giant sometimes. He throws some pretty scary stuff at us, and it’s hard to believe He has our best interests at heart. He may even be telling us to fly down, but we don’t hear Him, so He brings something into our lives that force us down, and only then do we find that down was the way out.

Is that where you are in your life right now, experiencing some scary stuff and not understanding it?

What we have that the bird doesn’t have is a word from God that He is in control.

We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. (2 Corinthians 4:9)