Daily
Devotional

When birds stop at my backyard feeders, I enjoy watching them. Some of the birds are migratory and only show up at certain times of the year. Even though I have seen the birds come faithfully every year, I tend to be a little concerned when I first fill up the feeders in autumn, wondering if the birds will find the seeds that I put out for them. Of course, it is only a matter of hours before the feeders are discovered, even though they are hidden in tree branches and not easily visible from the air. Somehow they are always located!  

It seems to me that God must have given birds the ability to communicate the news of a free meal on a cold day, because up to six or seven varieties show up at one time. I suppose He must have also given them the ability to remember where they have found food in the past, because there is a particular family of woodpeckers that comes every winter. Year after year they peck around my Hawthorne tree. It is a mystery to me how the next generation of woodpeckers knows that this is a good spot for a dinner, but God has apparently made a way.  

Sometimes we need to meditate on today’s focus verse and remember God’s care for us. At times I find myself trying to fix problems that I do not have the skills to fix. This seems to happen especially when the ones I love are going through difficulties, as it is hard to let go of concerns about them. Perhaps we tend to think we can help God, but we may end up saying or doing the wrong thing and ultimately making a bad situation worse. A much better approach is to turn the problem over to Jesus.

When we have problems and do not know how to fix them, we can remind ourselves to leave them to our Maker, who created all things. If He is concerned enough to ensure that the sparrows and woodpeckers get their meals, surely He is not going to forget one of His own!