Last week we were outside pulling weeds (5/12) in the backyard and this bird comes running up to us. Wouldn’t leave us alone. It was a little strange. Birds don’t usually come up to humans.
We kept pulling weeds and she kept being near to us.
What We Can Learn About God Through Birds
The next day, the same thing. She ran up to us, was near us again, etc. and I couldn’t figure it out. Why was she so friendly? 🤔
She started fanning out her feathers and suddenly, it dawned on me. She has eggs somewhere. 💣
So I looked around, walking very carefully and following her. Then I saw the eggs. No idea why she laid her eggs in the middle of our backyard. Usually birds lay eggs in trees in a nest. There wasn’t even a nest on the ground at all. We have a cat around here too in the neighborhood that is rather starring at her a lot (we scared it off twice).
I have no idea if she’s gonna make it, but we put rocks around her eggs so no one steps on them.
Every day we go outside, every day, she chases us. 😂 The fervency of a mother, am I right?!
The funniest part is the dad. He literally just sits there on the eggs, never chases us, never even gets up. When he’s on the eggs, we pull weeds because we know it’ll be quiet time.
It’s so crazy how the mom is running everyone off, squawking so much and being crazy and the dad just sits there.
Dad…
When the mom is around, the dad gets up, fans his tail at us, etc. to make it look like he’s doing something and I wonder to myself, what’s better?
Sitting there in total silence so the people don’t see you and go away. A mentality like, “They are not bothering me, I won’t bother them,” OR her personality just chasing us off when we so much as open the door!
It’s been a lot of fun to watch their habits.
We got some bird seed and feed them every couple days. After a few times of feeding them, the mom is calming down a little bit now. She knows we’re feeding them. She doesn’t seem as scared and isn’t chasing as much. Smart bird. Knows not to chase the hand that feeds her. 💖
It’ll be interesting to see babies hatch and how she intends to teach them to fly…. 🤔 from the ground. 😬 Uhmmm….
They’ve definitely been keeping us on our toes this week.
Then it happened!!!
Baby hatched! Sometime today (5/31) one of the babies hatched. The other baby is still in its egg at this point. Here’s a picture of first baby on it’s first day after being hatched…
It was hard to get the picture because as soon as they saw me, the baby would run under the dad (or mom, whoever was there protecting), but I was able to grab this shot real quick. 😊
It’s been such an exciting day for everyone. Mom and dad were flying around each other in the air, circling each other, giddy and having fun.
Mom (and dad!) are even MORE protective now of the nest than they were before! 😮😮😮
They’ve learned to trust us and not be afraid of me and my daughter (they don’t like my son; he’s more rough) but since baby was born, they are freaking out over us even BEING outside right now.
Dad was teaching baby to hunt for food all day and baby is pecking at the ground. Running around on the ground a lot, having fun.
Baby ran off too far away and mom started calling baby and baby started chirping back, SOOOO cute! They chirped back and forth until baby came back to mom.
It was interesting that they knew where baby was, but they didn’t run over to HIM. They let HIM come back to them.
There was another set of birds over with the parents too today. Not sure if it’s the grandparents, maybe? Not sure, but they were visiting baby. Isn’t that interesting?!
There’s not been another set of birds there this whole time, but baby comes and there’s another set! 💖
It’s interesting to see even dad be protective now. Baby is underneath the dad’s wing and he’s sitting on the egg still not hatched. Whereas he’s never chirped, when we go outside, now he does and mom is right there, more aggressive in her attempts to ward us off.
All through out this whole thing, God keeps reminding me of the verse, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Matthew 6:25-26
And I see that they do NOT worry about food. Every morning, like clock work, at 5:05 am (ish), they wake up and chirp and go get food. First the mom leaves the nest to get food, while dad sits on the eggs and then after several hours, around 11 am-12 noon, they switch. The dad goes off and the mom sits on the nest and it’s a pretty routine schedule.
They DON’T worry about food, just like God says.
But here’s the thing.
They may not worry about food, but they DO worry.
God isn’t saying that they NEVER, EVER worry. When we go outside and get too close to the nest, they start acting like they are dying to get us away from the nest (typical Killdeer bird pattern). They are worried about their babies.
After a little while, they settle down and it’s okay.
👉 They don’t HOLD ONTO worry, and I think that’s the key.
They don’t sit there and stew in worry. They are only worried, for a few minutes (or however long the “danger” lasts).
If a spider comes up to you in your face, and scares you, is it sin then, that you got scared? Worried he would bite you?
No!
It’s not sin to worry for a few minutes.
Of course, God puts in us a mechanism that understands danger. If I came face to face with a bear, I would be worried! So would you! That’s a natural self-preservation mechanism.
That’s not what God is talking about here in the verses. He’s not saying, “Never worry. Never have a self-preservation thought. Never be scared.”
He understands that we WILL be frightened at times. We will be scared. We will worry, but we shouldn’t live there. 👈
We shouldn’t live in worry. We shouldn’t make it our friend. We have that worrisome feeling and the devil comes along and tempts us to worry more.
The Bible says flee from Satan and he will flee from you (James 4:7).
Flee from temptation. Flee from lust. Flee from WORRY!
You’re not in sin when you worry in that moment. It becomes sin if we STAY THERE in it.
Also note that there are legitimate things to worry about. Our safety, for example. Going back to the bear example. We’d be worried. That’s normal. But after the danger is over, we shouldn’t, for the rest of our lives, fear bears. That’s not to mean do stupid stuff like purposely walk into a bear cave, but it does mean that we don’t have to fear bears.
We shouldn’t worry about things that God promises to provide either.
He promises to provide Christians food, shelter, and clothing.
These things we don’t have to worry about because He’s promised them.
It’s always so interesting to me. When I was unsaved, I became homeless. Even still, in my unregenerate condition at the time, He STILL provided for me. A place to live (homeless shelter), food to eat (it was disgustingly expired for a long time, but it was food), and clothing (the shelter had some clothing we could have).
NOW, the amount that He provides for me is amazing. Awe-inspiring. I make quite a nice living online.
I’ve been poor, and I’ve been wealthy and I’ve always been taken care of in both extremes. I’ve never gone without food or clothing or shelter. God helped me get my first apartment after I couldn’t stay in the homeless shelter anymore (they have a time limit you can be there so they can provide for as many people as possible).
All through my life, He has provided, even when I wasn’t saved and that is to His glory. His grace surely abounds.
If He did not let me starve, when I was NOT Christian, why would He now let me go hungry now that I AM Christian?! 💯
The answer to that of course, is that He wouldn’t.
Sometimes it’s difficult not to worry and I get that, but as a believer in Jesus Christ, we have to find comfort in knowing He will provide for us. Do our part and then let Him provide.
Every day he feeds the birds at my house. Both babies have hatched now, just 12-24 later after the first baby hatched, the second one hatched and babies are running around the yard so fast and so cute in their first day.
There was a cat watching them, I scared it off twice. He’s kept those birds and their babies safe thus far. How much more will He keep US safe. That we are heirs to the kingdom of God! 🙌💎🎁
