The Birds

I like to think of her as a bird. Not like The Notebook portrays it. (“If you’re a bird, I’m a bird!”) A bird that floats with the wind, wings spread, strong in her wingspan, but graceful as the wind lashes across her face. She flies with intention, flaps when the time is right, glides when the wind blows just so. She knows what she’s made for. She’s comfortable in the air, where no other creature can touch her, because no other creature can fly like she can.

She can come back to the earth, she can survey the scene below from up in the sky. She rests. She goes where she is needed, or sometimes just where she wants to be. She doesn’t have to answer to anyone but a God who created her, who gave her the instinct to be herself. Not anyone else. And certainly not some other kind of animal.

When Christ made His home in me, it cancelled out the challenge to become successful, to have everything together, to be like those around me, etc. Before Him, I wanted to be what every other girl in the world was like. I wanted to live in a world where whatever everyone else had, that’s what I needed too. After Him, I became like a bird; knowing the value of His creation, including myself.

Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.
Matthew 6:26, The Message

Just think:  careless in the care of God. Free. Unfettered. Not tied down.

I’m exhausted from chasing after an ideal that I cannot reach. I let my mind tell me lies, with questions that start with How or Why. I tie myself to insecurities like I need them, give myself passes when uncomfortable situations feel too icky, mistake strength for outspoken criticism, and get bogged down by fear. Fear. There seems to be a lot I would actually do if I wasn’t letting fear live in the next room.

Jesus believes that I count more to him than those free, beautiful birds. He said that himself in Matthew. And it makes me think–why do we choose, most times, to live a careful, limited, tethered life, as though our anchor is “reality” and God is only working so much in us that being a little “crazier” would just be, well, too crazy?

I count more. And I can live freer than a bird, untethered. Free. Unfettered. Not tied down.

I don’t see any birds thinking their thighs are too fat, their abilities not enough, their situation too meager to allow them to fly.

Let’s be her. Like the birds: graceful, strong, careless in the care of God. We can’t fly out of His palm. So why not fly knowing there’s no escaping Him?