He's Got You

January 24, 2022

From Jackie Payne

When I was growing up I watched my grandparents' love of birds. They had field guides and binoculars. There were multiple bird feeders around their home, and my grandparents could quickly name what kind of bird was on one of their feeders at any given time. As a kid I thought this was something that only old people did, so slow and boring. Fast forward thirty years and guess what - birds are fascinating!

We are now the proud owners of four bird feeders in our yard (my grandparents would laugh at me if they were still alive). And every day we find something cool to spot - the cardinal couple that apparently lives in our yard, the squirrels that gorge themselves and send the feeder swinging on the shepherd's rod, the little chickadees that cover the ground and eat the seed that has fallen. Now, I can't name all the birds, nor do I have a set of binoculars or a book on birds, but I do appreciate how they are so free, so unaware of a world that seems, at times, so dark.

Every time I see these birds flitting around without a care in the world, I can't help but think of Jesus' words in Matthew 6:

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

Jesus loves me, this I know. And He loves you, too. You are worth so much to Him, so much that He sent His Son to die for you. He wants you! Not what you can do or what you can provide or how you perform some task, but you...just you, with all your sins and your flaws and your stupid ideas and even stupider actions. And He wants you to trust Him with your everything. Let go of that need to control, that need to worry about the next thing in your life. He loves you and He's got you...just as He's got the birds that flit outside my living room windows.