Little Goldfinch

It has been one busy week... I can't wait till Sabbath...That will be so nice!

I had a really cool experience happen to me last week and I've wanted to write about it but have been too busy with school and work to just sit down and let all my thoughts come together on it. Last Friday I was getting ready for Sabbath when I happened to look out the window and saw a little goldfinch on the ground all by himself. My Dad had put some pine branches around the bird feeder so that the birds were a little more protected and there the little bird sat under a pine branch. Poor little thing, he was sick. We get sick birds at the feeder from time to time and I know you aren't supposed to handle them but my heart is sometimes bigger than my head and I hate suffering. (my Mom is worse than me!!!) So, I put some gloves on, found a box, and put some straw in it. I took it to the bird feeder and picked the goldfinch up and he was sick but not to sick to cry and fly off. I followed him over to a lilac bush near our driveway and decided to not chase him further. I didn't want him getting too far away. I prayed for the little fellow and left him sitting on the branch of the lilac bush.

Sabbath morning came and I got up and started getting ready for church. I ran downstairs to do something real quick and my Mom told me that there was a hawk out trying to get the birds. I stuck my head out the door and who should be there on the snowy walkway all by himself but the little sick bird. It broke my heart because he had obviously seen the hawk and he had no where to go. You could tell he was looking for a place to hide but was too sick to really know what to do. I quickly threw a pair of boots and stepped outside to rescue him. I started talking sweetly to him and it blew me away because, and you can even ask my Mom because she witnessed the whole thing, the bird started coming to me!! I bent down, put my hand, (I did put gloves on!) down in front of him and he wanted in my hand! When I picked him up he started to put his head in his feathers to sleep. He was so sick. Mom and I put him in a dish cloth and placed him in the box outside and there he passed away a short time later. What amazed me though was not only did that bird come to me but some of the lessons God was showing me through the encounter with the little goldfinch.

What really hit me was to see how it is my sin that caused this bird to suffer. Sure, we like to generalize things, yeah I sin, but no, it wasn't my sin that caused that poor little innocent bird to suffer. It was Adam & Eve's fault, they were the first sinners! Wait, it's natures way of dealing with overpopulation! The bird gets sick in the harsh cold, drops over dead, and that's one less old bird around! It's not "nature's way",it's my sin. It was never supposed to be this way! I have grown up a christian and have understood that I am a sinner and that my sin nailed Jesus to the cross, yet, I don't think it has ever really penetrated my heart the way it did last Friday. I was really grateful for God really showing me this and bringing this home to my heart. I'm grateful for God's "reality checks."

Another lesson that I can see through this experience with the bird was that just like when the bird was sick, and I tried to rescue him the first time how he ran away, that can happen with us and God. "God, I know how to run my life, I know how to take care of myself," and yet he sees us as we really are. Like it says in Revelation 3:17, "Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." The more we run from the God the worse situation we are in when I submit to His Lordship in my life that is when He can work through me. The farther we run from God the more we put ourselves in the way of danger. Like the little bird who saw he was a prime target for the hawk but couldn't do anything about it, we are putting ourselves in the way of the enemy when we run from God. The awesome thing is that God is right there when we call out to Him though. He is ready with open arms to pick us up and to let us rest in His love. Why run from Him when you can rest in His love? That is the best place in the world to be!