Aren’t two sparrows sold for a small coin? But not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father knowing about it already. Even the hairs of your head are all counted. Don’t be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows. (Matt 10:29-31)

Rebekah and I spent a lot of time watching the birds yesterday. The snowy sub-freezing day was the perfect opportunity to win their confidence by re-stocking the bird feeders (or, better described as the “watch-squirrels-gorge-themselves” feeders).

We haven’t learned all their names yet, but the contrast with our Florida home, wide-open and backing onto a golf course, couldn’t be greater.

In Brandon we had the wide wing-span birds who needed a long landing strip. Sandhill cranes, cormorants, hawks, eagles. Here we’re getting to know the birds who love the trees. Wren, titmouse, robin, finch, woodpecker, cardinal, and many more.

We’ve seen most of them before, one or two at a time, flitting in and out; but never the numbers or the variety who came yesterday. But I guess they were hungry, and – somehow – they sensed there was good reason to stop by the end of the cul-de-sac and visit at Maul Haul.

GOOD FOOD: I believe there’s a sense in which we all know, rooted sometimes in the core of ourselves, where to go when we’re hungry. When we were created – each one of us an individual, purposeful act of creative love – the hunger, too, was placed with tender care in a deep place.

I believe that all of our hunger is satisfied in Jesus; our longing, our emptiness, our restlessness, our need. “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord,” St. Augustine confessed in the 4th Century, “and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”

CHURCH: The Church, as an institution, may be imperfect and flawed – tragically imperfect at times. But, in all our brokenness, the “Body of Christ” remains the best expression of God’s nurture and encouragement, and the best opportunity for those who are hungry to find their way home.

Jesus put it best, and it’s a scripture I quoted just a few days ago. “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.”

Ripe. Ripe for harvest. Seriously. There are hungry people everywhere. And Jesus has food that they don’t even know about.

– DEREK

(click these images for more cool bird pics)