Lions and Tigers and Bears Oh My!

Ok so it is more like Bald Eagles, Cardinals, Blue Jays and Beavers. 

“C’mon lets go” my friend yelled standing two feet away in the patio door that leads to my backyard. 

“Shhhhh quiet, you are going to scare them away, come take a look at this” I said in little more than a whisper.

Exasperated and growing impatient she steps out onto the patio to take a look.  “It is a bird” she says.

“It is not just a bird, look at it, it’s a Cardinal, I think there is a family of them living up there” I said pointing up into the 50 year old maple tree that is still standing tall in my backyard.

“Ok, so it is a Cardinal, I think we learned about those in the first grade, c’mon lets go”.

“If there is any doubt in your mind that God exists, that bird right there is proof that He does”.

“It’s a bird”.

So my friend was completely missing my point, and I am not giving up hope that some day she will see the beauty in what I saw in my backyard that afternoon. Living in Wisconsin we don’t see many Cardinals, our state bird is the Robin, and Cardinals don’t come around for a visit very often, but when they do, it is hard to miss them.  I had Cardinals and Blue Jays living in my back yard that summer, looking quite intentional with their color palette of blues and reds so bright that it is unmistakably God who created them, and rather than containing these colors, He created a bird to bestow them upon, to swoop and dart through the air for all the world to see, and they were living in the tree in my backyard, and they stuck around all summer keeping me company. 

I saw many miracles that summer, A long neck crane cooling himself in the pond across the street, Cardinals and Blue Jays gliding through the air over head, a beaver slithering its way into the water and a bald eagle perched on a lamp post that had the entire neighborhood out to watch, and when it spread its wings and took flight I don’t see how anyone can deny how great our God is to create such a beautiful and spectacular creature.

I was asked the question recently, how to find God’s purpose for our life, I had to tap a few resources to find the best answer I could possibly give to that question, and this is what I came up with, we are to live our lives to glorify God.  We have to say yes, we have to say yes Lord I accept you as my Savior, we have to say yes and get out of the boat.  Because as long as we stay in the comfortable confines of the four walls of ourselves, relying on our own understanding to get us through this life we have no need for Him, we do not glorify Him, and we miss His best.  But when we say yes, and get out of the boat we are stepping outside our own understanding and doing what looks to be the impossible in our small human minds, and that is when we become totally dependent on God, who will bring us through to glorify Him. I have attached some links to a blog by Lysa TerKeurst (start at the bottom with Permission to be Haunted and read up) and her story on how she came to adopt two orphan boys, it is a story of saying yes to God and stepping out of the boat into the unknown and how God brought them all through, and where they are today. I am not done talking about this but I think I have said enough for today. So I leave you with a song, In Wonder by the Newsboys, it is one of my favorites, a few scriptures and a story, and give God some glory for the beauty He has created.

Psalms 9:1-2

I will praise you, O'Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders. I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing praise in your name, O Most High.

Ephesians 2:10

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Isaiah 40:31

but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar in wings likes eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

http://lysaterkeurst.com/page/3/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrIaqXRjRho