Thoughts About Life
I remember so clearly my parents, when they were older, loving to have a bird feeder outside of their window in the winter. Watching the birds feed seemed to fill much of their time, and my dad would even name the birds (even though I’m sure he didn’t know one cardinal from another).
What goes around comes around I suppose, and with the return of the cold weather a couple of weeks ago, Jim and I have enjoyed watching the birds on our bird feeder. We can see them from our sunroom and from our home office. At this point in life, we don’t have quite as much time to sit and watch them as my parents did, but occasionally we will have a cup of coffee and enjoy their antics.
It amazes me that with a bird feeder full of food, and six openings with perches, they all seem to want to eat out of the same opening! They sit in the tree waiting for an opportunity to fly down and knock another bird off of the perch they want, while five other openings are available.
Now I know you didn’t necessarily want to know this about our bird feeder, but it made me think about a real lesson we all need to learn in life.
Aren’t we sometimes just like those birds? We have so much available to us and yet we often want what someone else has. We take for granted our blessings in life, and look at what others have with longing and sometimes envy.
Maybe it’s a house, or a mate, or an education, or a job, or so many other things that just seem better than what we have. So, we become dissatisfied and unappreciative of what is available to us.
I’ve known of marriages that have been miserable and suffered dire consequences because of a desire for someone else’s mate. (Does David come to your mind?) Some marriages have completely failed because of wanting what someone else had. Friendships sometimes end because someone else got the job or promotion you wanted. I know Christians who have walked away from the Lord’s church because it looked like someone else had a more exciting spiritual life than they did. The list could go on and on.
Two passages from God’s word come to my mind:
- “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have…” (Heb. 13:5 emphasis added).
- “…I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content” (Phil. 4:11).
Birds don’t know how God has blessed them, but we should. I need to learn the lesson that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights…” (James 1:17).
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AUTHOR: Donna Faughn
