On Valuing All of God ©
Dr. Daniel Meister
At the beginning of this spring, I undertook a project to enhance the accommodation of wildlife in our backyard—I decided to install a bird house on a select tree that was visually in range to the house that I might enjoy the wonderful comings & goings of our fine feathered friends. The box I selected from the DIY store was, as the label indicated, intended to attract Blue Birds. I can only assume that the type of bird attracted has to do with the size of the hole as the entryway into the house. After buying the house, my daughter helped to hang it upon our chosen tree. She climbed the high heights to the top of the ladder & fastened one of the screws through the back of the house firmly into the bark of the tree. We completed our task with a sense of togetherness and pride. All we needed to do now was sit back and wait for those beautiful Blue Birds to spot the box and begin building their family nest. Think of all those beautiful little Blue Bird chicks that would soon hatch! As I contemplated the still empty bird house, I thought that “nature always exploits an opportunity.” It is never long between when I fill our bird feeder that “somehow” the birds know that it’s full and one bird tells another who tells another and then they happily eat themselves silly until, within the span of a short day or two, the feeder is found to be swinging in the wind, empty again. It would not be long, I thought, and a loving family of blue birds will soon inhabit the cedar home we had attached to the outstretched Ash.
The following day I had found the notion about “nature exploiting an opportunity” to be absolutely true. In the short space of 24 hours, new residents had indeed moved into their new dwelling place. But to my utter frustration, the family that had arrived were simple Sparrows!! Small, brown, boring, and devoid of any enlivening colors these “Plain Jane’s” of the skies had, without any invitation, moved into my Blue Birds’ house. The nerve! Should I evict them? Should I grab the ladder, run quickly to the box, open the flap door and empty the contents of whatever nesting they had begun, in the hope that they would depart?! Didn’t they know that the bird house had come with the label saying that this box was for Blue Birds? Apparently, these Sparrows had not read the label. Brown, boring and stupid, I thought! This was to be a “high rent district” box with only the finest blue plumage on display, and instead, I had become a bird box slum lord. I defensively reasoned, “It’s not my fault if nature is all screwed up . . . if these brainless birds couldn’t fathom that the circumference of that opening was meant for a more gorgeous and gallant species of aviators.” In disgust, I disowned the project. In disgust, I would peer out the kitchen window and curse the banal flights of these winged immigrants without approved visas.
As I watched, I observed that these small short-rounds of the sky couldn’t care less how I felt about their unlawful habitation. Indeed, they considered themselves not squatters, but entitled, privileged and happy to have such a fine box to call their own. If they knew me, perhaps they would thank me. Then again, if they did, they might not. There is a straightforward rule in nature I came to observe which is: What’s mine is mine and it’s not yours! Clearly this house was their home, not mine, nor was it going to be that of any upwardly mobile family of Blue Birds. The responsibility of respecting this rule was mine alone. And come to respect it I slowly did. Doesn’t God value the Sparrow—the least of all birds? And doesn’t He value me? Indeed, this is what makes God great! What I miss, God perfectly makes Grand! What I complicate, God makes sublimely simply. Perhaps God, who orders and holds sway over all creation, had directed the trajectory of their flight plan to that very box of many splendorous blessings: the warm nest to make, the fresh worms to catch and, yes, those soon to be plain speckled eggs? Before I bought the box, God had seen its occupants there. I valued what I deemed to have value, but God values what I do not, and confronts me about what I cannot. And so I came to a place of ‘letting go and letting God’ with these Sparrows. The box was theirs to have. Since God brought them, I was required, by Divine Decree, to accept them. Could I keep out what God had allowed in? I would allow God to be God; if that is really mine to allow and I would respect and find space to appreciate the immense complexity of His mysterious world that daily is on display before our eyes.
