When America was first colonized, bluebirds were probably as profuse as the American Robin.  But they suffered a major decline between 1920 and the late 70s.  Winter freezes in the South in the 1890s, the late 1940s, and several in the 1950s and 70s left them without protection, food, and liquid water.  Changes in land use, highways, and loss of forest also contributed.  Their habitat was slowly disappearing.  Orchards with carefully pruned trees meant no more cavities in the trunks and branches, their preferred nesting sites.  Pesticides meant fewer insects for them to eat, and many of the bugs that survived were tainted with poison that killed the birds that ate them. Maybe the biggest problem was the introduction of House Sparrows (not true sparrows) and European Starlings.  These birds were aggressive competitors for both food and habitat.  By the 1980s, younger generations of Americans had never even seen a bluebird.
              On March 20, 1978 the North American Bluebird Society was incorporated under the direction of Dr. Lawrence Zeleny.  They flooded the public with information on the demise of practically everyone's favorite bird, and gave out instructions on building bluebird houses and maintaining bluebird trails.  Thanks largely to the efforts of individuals like you and me, the bluebird population is once again rising.
I have three bluebird houses.  I wondered one day what made a bird house a bluebird house and got an education I didn’t expect. 
              Bluebird houses are built in dimensions bluebirds like, shallow depth of 3½ to 5 inches.  I guess they like it cozy.  A good bluebird house has good drainage and cross ventilation.  It also has no perch outside the entrance, which keeps away predators.  A sparrow-proof bluebird house will have a slot entrance instead of a round hole because sparrows do not like slots, while bluebirds don’t mind them. 
              As for the monitoring, songbirds have a notoriously bad sense of smell, so it is perfectly acceptable to open the houses and check the nest and the fledglings every day for parasites or “squatters.”  Monitors can even rebuild the nest if parasites are found without upsetting the bluebird.  They also know the different types of nests and remove the ones that are not bluebird nests.  After a successful clutch has hatched and flown, they remove the old nest and clean it out for the next. 
              Do you think I can’t get any lessons out of this?  Watch me.
              Too many times we get picky about the people we share the gospel with.  I have heard things like, “We need to convert them.  They’d be a good addition to the church,” a thought based upon the lifestyle and income of the family in question rather than their need for the gospel.  We “sparrow-proof” the church by making it unfriendly and unattractive to the people we don’t want to deal with—who wants people with real problems? 
              We aren’t the only ones with that bad attitude.  The Pharisees thought it terrible that Jesus taught "sinners."  At least four times in the book of Luke we see them approaching either him or the disciples asking why he associated with such wicked people, (5:30; 7:39; 15:1,2; 19:7).  They turned their noses up at the very people they should have been trying to save.
              The first Christians were Jewish.  Guess who they did not want the apostles to convert?  Peter had to defend himself after he converted the Gentile Cornelius, Acts 11.  Defend himself, mind you, because he saved souls! 
              Then in James 2 we read of a church that didn’t want poor people among them.  They went out of their way NOT to welcome anyone who was not obviously well-to-do.
              If you have not seen attitudes like these, you are either blessed in the congregation you find yourself a part of, or not very old.  Keith was once chastised for bringing the “wrong class” of people to church.  They came from “the other side of the tracks.”
              The Lord didn’t die just for the bluebirds.  He died for those squawking, brash blue jays too.  He died for those territorial cardinals.  He died for those common, ordinary, dime-a-dozen sparrows.  He even died for those disgusting buzzards.  All those people need salvation too, not just the bluebirds. 
              Jesus told the Pharisees who questioned him three parables.  The last, the lost son, included an older brother who obviously did not want his little brother saved.  Jesus made it plain that the older brother was as much in need of grace as the younger.  It had to be obvious to those Pharisees that his remarks were directed to them.  They are directed to us too, when we try to make his house “for bluebirds only.”
 
For the love of Christ constrains us; because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died;  and he died for all, that they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again.  From now on therefore we regard no one according to the flesh… 2 Cor 5:14-16.
 
Dene Ward

When we first moved here, we were surrounded by twenty acres of woods on each side.  We sat at the table and watched deer grazing at the edge of the woods while we ate breakfast.  Our garden was pilfered by coons and possums that could ruin two dozen melons and decimate a forty foot row of corn overnight.  We shot rattlesnakes and moccasins, and shooed armadillos out of the yard.  At night we listened not only to whippoorwills singing and owls hooting, but also to bobcats screaming deep in the woods.

              Then one morning I walked out to the chicken pen to gather eggs.  I stepped inside warily because the rooster had a habit of declaring his territory with an assault on whoever came through the gate, and as I watched for him over my shoulder, I realized that my subconscious count of the hens was off by one or two.  So I scattered the feed and carefully counted them when they came running to eat—one, two, three, four…nine, ten, eleven.  One was missing.

              I scoured the pen.  No chickens hiding behind the coop or under a scrubby bush.  I checked the old tub we used to water them just to make sure one had not fallen in, as had happened before.  Nothing quite like finding a drowned chicken first thing in the morning, but no chicken in the tub.  Then I left the pen and searched around it.  On the far side lay a trail of feathers leading off to the woods, but Keith was away on business and there wasn’t much I could do.  The next morning I counted only ten chickens and found yet another trail.

              We were fairly sure what was going on.  So when he got back home that day, he parked the truck up by the house, pointed toward the chicken pen, and that night when the dogs started barking, he stepped outside in the dark, shotgun in hand, and flipped on the headlights.  Nothing.  Every night for a week, he was out with the first bark, and every night he saw nothing.  But he never stopped going out to look.  At least the noise and lights were saving the chickens we still had.

              Then one night, after over a week of losing sleep and expecting once again to find nothing, there it was--a bobcat standing outside the pen, seventy-five feet across the field.  Keith is a very good shot, even by distant headlight.

              I still think of that trail of feathers sometimes and shiver.  I couldn’t help hoping the hen was already dead when she was dragged off, that she wasn’t squawking in fear and pain in the mouth of a hungry predator.

              Sometimes it happens to the people of God.  We usually think in terms of sheep and wolves, and the scriptures talk in many places of those sheep being “snatched” and “scattered.”  It isn’t hard to imagine a trail of fleece and blood instead of feathers.            

              I think we need to imagine that scene more often and make it real in our minds, just as real as that trail of feathers was to me.  Losing a soul is not some trivial matter.  It is frightening; it is painful; it is bloody; it’s something worth losing a little sleep over.  If we thought of it that way, maybe we would work harder to save a brother who is on the edge, maybe we would be more careful ourselves and not walk so close to the fence, flirting with the wolf on the other side.

              Look around you today and do a count.  How many souls have been lost in the past year alone?  Has anyone bothered to set up a trap for the wolf?  Has anyone even acknowledged his existence?  Clipped chickens, even as dumb as they are, do not fly over a six foot fence, but a bobcat can climb it in a flash and snatch the unwary in his jaws.  Be on the lookout today.
 
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. John 10:11-15
 
Dene Ward

This business of treating small dogs as fashion accessories strikes me as a little barbaric.  I’m surprised PETA hasn’t stepped in and complained.  Of all people, they should take offense at an animal being treated as an inanimate object.

              I understand loving an animal.  I have cried at the loss of every dog and cat we ever had.  I planted flowers on Magdi’s grave, one that blooms all summer and one that blooms spring and fall.  The only time I can’t look out the window and know at a glance where she lies is the middle of winter.  But she had her place and it wasn’t in my purse.

              Some people treat pet peeves as if they were real pets, live creatures that must be fed and cared for.  In fact, feeding is a good word for the way they nurture those peeves at every opportunity.  Understand, I am not talking about matters of sin and morality, but things we like or don’t like, opinions we hold about certain behaviors, and even matters of courtesy.  Courtesy is usually a cultural notion, not one of moral right and wrong.  It may bug me to death to be in an elevator with someone yelling into a cell phone, but I doubt it will send him to hell.

              If it is possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all, Rom 12:18.  Nowadays, when our culture is calling on us to take a stand on things we used to take for granted, it is even more important that we not raise a fuss over the inconsequential.  “Choose your battles,” something parents must learn so their children won’t view them as prison guards but as wise guides instead.  We need to learn that in regard to pet peeves too.

              When you take that unpopular moral stand, no one will listen if all you have done before is rant about minor things at every opportunity.  No one will care what your opinion is or how well you back it with facts when they are used to tuning you out.  If, on the other hand, you have always been fair-minded, cool-tempered, and tolerant of others’ social gaffes, making allowances for them without even being asked, when something comes along that actually causes you to stand up and speak, they are far more likely to pay attention—and consider.

              It is also important to stifle those pet peeves with your brothers and sisters in the Lord.  Be at peace among yourselves…seek peace and pursue it…suffer wrong [for the sake of peace]…be one…so that the world may know you have sent me, 1 Thes 5:13; 1 Pet 3:11; 1 Cor 6:7; John 17:22,23.  God could not have made it plainer that how we get along with one another affects far more important things than our own personal agendas.  Today we must be as tightly bound as the threefold cord spoken of in Eccl 4:12.  We need one another when the world turns against us and labels us “hateful” simply because we exercise our American right to disagree and, much more important, our Christian obligation to speak out.  If my reputation precedes me as an irrational ranter who isn’t worth listening to, it isn’t just myself I am hurting, but the Lord and His cause.

              I must stop tending those pet peeves as if they were pedigreed pooches, when all they are is a crack in my armor.  Who do you imagine rejoices the most when I lose it over a trifling matter of preferences?  The Lord or Satan? 

              We are all sojourners on the same trip, stopping for a night at a second rate motel.  No pets allowed.
 
A fool’s wrath is known at once, but the prudent ignores an insult…a fool utters all his anger, but a wise man keeps it back and stills it…love covers a multitude of sins, Prov 12:16; 29:11; 1 Pet 4:8.
 
Dene Ward
 

A few weeks ago Keith took the garbage to the dump in the pickup as he has done out here in the country for over thirty years now.  It's one of the perks of our rural existence—no Waste Management bill, but that means we take care of it ourselves.  So, since the truck hadn’t been driven in a while, he took it down the straightaway a couple miles past our turn-off and back, at highway speed.  A mechanic friend said it was the only way to blow out the pipes, so to speak, and would make the already twenty year old truck last longer.

              When he got home he muttered something about "those pesky wrens" and pulled a nest out of the grillwork on the front of the truck.  It was well past nesting season, even for birds that do so more than once, so he assumed the nest was empty.  As he pulled it out and tossed it, two small wrens fluttered to the grass, then half hopped, half flew to the nearest thing off the ground, the big shop fan on the carport.  Almost immediately the mother wren found her babies and shepherded them to the azaleas while we stood there a little aghast.  For a day or two we watched as they learned of necessity to fly a little sooner than they had planned, and called Chloe off of them more than once.

              Wrens are known for building nests practically anywhere.  This one may have learned a lesson.  In fact, we wondered between us what must have happened as Keith left the dump and sped down that highway.  Somehow I can see two little heads peering over the edge of the nest, looking down the highway as the wind tore at their feathers, glancing at one another with eyes wide and mouths agape. 

              "What's going on, Ethel?"

              "I don't know Lucy, but hang on!"

              The sad part is that most Carolina wrens lay four to six eggs.  Even supposing that some of the others had already flown the nest, it's quite possible that a one or two were actually blown away in that wild ride down the highway.

              Life can be a pretty wild ride.  It's that way because we messed it up a few thousand years ago.  God told Adam and Eve they would face hard work, lots of sweat, pain, and anguish because of their error.  We face the same things, and our part in sin makes it only just. 

              ​You lift me up on the wind; you make me ride on it, and you toss me about in the roar of the storm. (Job 30:22)

              Sometimes the winds of trial blow so hard we have to hang on by our toenails.  Some don't make it down the highway as far as others, being blown aside by disease or accident or simple wear and tear on a fragile, physical body.  And all of that is a blessing, really, even if we do have a hard time seeing it that way.  When God kicked the first couple out of Eden, their access to the Tree of Life ended.  But who would want to live forever in a sin-cursed world when we can move on to something so much better?

              I think we often get too involved in trying to find a reason when the ride gets rough.  It seems to be the only way we can handle a misfortune.  But sometimes it is not about a bad decision we made.  Sometimes it's because someone else decided to go warm up the tires and exercise the engine and we just happened to get caught in the grillwork.  Time and chance happen to all, the Preacher tells us and that may just be the only why there is.  Make the most of it.  The other day Keith came across those two little wrens, hopping, flitting, and flapping in the dust of the dirt floor equipment shed.  They had survived their ordeal and gotten on with life.

              When you reach my age, you find yourself looking back on that daredevil ride you have taken.  You hope you can take a little solace in how you faced it—resolutely, courageously, determined to see it through without whining or complaining too much, without being too embarrassed to look in the mirror and see what you were made of.  Even when the ride is nearly over, the Devil may yet come along and yank you out of the last comfortable place you call home and then what?

              Then you live on the thing that God's people have always survived on—hope.  We seem so busy trying to make this life the reward—when it isn't and never has been for any but the unbeliever—that we seldom talk about hope any longer.  When did you last hear a lesson on Heaven?  Not on what happens after death, something no one can say with any assurance at all anyway, but on what happens when the Lord comes again—the reward for our faithfulness despite the difficulties of this life, despite the roaring winds, the monster of a revving engine trying to gobble us up, the potholes and the bumps in the road.  That reward should be our focus, not this wild ride of a life.  Someday very soon, it won't matter at all.

              "Hang on Lucy!"  Making it through the ride is worth it.
 
When the tempest passes, the wicked is no more, but the righteous is established forever. (Prov 10:25)

Dene Ward

Campgrounds have a lot of aggravating rules.  Some of them are just plain ridiculous.  Yet, I understand the problem.  Too many thoughtless people have no concept of picking up after themselves while being careful where they dump things. 

              Most state parks have a place to dump “gray water.”  We aren’t talking about raw sewage.  Gray water, as defined, includes the dishpan of water you washed your dishes in.  Ever carry a couple gallons of water 500 yards in an awkward dishpan you must hold out in front of you, trying not to slosh it all over yourself in the cold?  Nearly impossible.  And who, living in the country, doesn’t know that wash water works wonders on the blueberries and flower beds?  At least the last park we stayed at had dispensed with the gray water rule.

              I think some of these things bother me because, as country people, we are always green.  We are careful what gets dumped where, even if it means having to load it up and cart it off to the landfill ourselves; you don’t want your groundwater polluted, especially uphill from the well.  We rotate crops.  We even rotate garden spots. We use twigs to dissuade cutworms rather than plastic rings or metal nails. We mulch with the leaves from our live oaks, which we then turn under to enrich the ground after the garden is spent.  We dump the ashes from the woodstove into the fallow garden.  I am sure Keith could add even more to this list.

              God expects his people to be “green.”  Good stewardship of his gifts has always been his expectation, from our abilities to the gospel itself.  You can even find sewage disposal rules in the Law.  Cruelty to animals was punished under the Old Covenant.  That same principle of stewardship follows into the New.

              At the same time, God said, “Have dominion over [the earth] and subdue [the animals],” Gen 1:28.  He said to eat of the plants and the animals, 1:29; 9:3.  God meant this to be a place we used for our survival, not a zoological and botanical garden where nothing can be touched.  When we carefully use the resources of the earth, it will continue to furnish us with the things we need.  So we eat sustainable seafood.  We hunt in season, and eat the meat we bring home.  We raise and eat animals fed with garden refuse.  We carefully sow and reap so the ground will continue to be arable.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of that.

              Sometimes, though, the people who claim to be green are no longer flesh-colored (in all its assorted hues).  They care more for animals than people.  I know that is true when I see a “Save the Whales” bumper sticker on the same car touting “The Right to Choose.”  Let’s save the animals, but the babies are fair game.

              Shades of Romans 1--Paul speaks of the Gentiles who had rejected Jehovah throughout the ancient days and eventually arrived at the point that they “worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator” 1:25.  Our culture has come dangerously close to that.  The environment has become the cause du jour, and while I certainly agree that we should care for the beautiful home God gave us and not be cruel to animals, it is because I am grateful to the God who made them for me, not because I have less regard for humans.  I have always been that way, not just recently, yet I still know that people are more important than sea turtles, and unborn children more so than polar bears.

              So let’s be green, just as God has always expected—but let’s be flesh-colored too, caring about the people, and their souls even more than the animals.  And let us also be as white as snow—an obedient people who worship and serve the God who created it all.
 
From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work. You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth.  The trees of the LORD are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. In them the birds build their nests; the stork has her home in the fir trees. The high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the rock badgers. The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God. When the sun rises, they steal away and lie down in their dens. Man goes out to his work and to his labor until the evening. O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD rejoice in his works, Psa 104:13,14,16-18,21-24,31.
 
Dene Ward
 

Every dog we have ever had has loved a good belly rub, but Chloe seems to have taken it to another level.  It isn’t just that she begs for a belly rub, it’s that she thinks God put her here to have her belly scratched, and that scratching her belly may be the only reason He put us here.

              A few people seem to have the same opinion about themselves and the church.  The only reason God instituted a church is to pander to their every need.  It seldom seems to cross their minds that other people have needs as well, and that those needs may be even more critical than theirs.  Chloe wouldn’t care if the house were on fire if she saw us running outside.  She would still scamper up, plop herself on the ground and roll over—isn’t that why we came outside, to scratch her belly?  A Christian who thinks he is the center of the universe is behaving the same way.

              Others think the only reason God put them in the church was for the church to listen to them.  They never ask a question in a Bible class, or offer a comment to stimulate discussion and deep thinking.  Instead they have all the answers and are happy to tell you exactly how things ought to be done, even things that are not specifically spelled out in the scriptures.  They know best.  It amazes me when these are people new to a congregation, who don’t yet know the background and experiences of the people they are trying to advise, often including elders, or who are in their mid-twenties with little life experience behind them.  Kind of reminds me of Chloe who thinks a belly rub is appropriate any time of day, any place, even while you are trying to shoot a rattlesnake that she obviously has not seen.  But she knows best, Boss!

              Then there are the ones who think their feelings, or the feelings of a family member, are all that count.  The church is supposed to pussyfoot around and never offer exhortation or criticism that might “offend” by our definition of the word.  They think they are put here to be stroked and petted and “have their belly rubbed” regardless of what might be happening to their souls.  Reminds me of that passage about people “whose god is their belly”—nothing matters at the moment but how they feel.  I am not about to let Chloe roll over on her back in the middle of a garden row I have just planted that is supposed to help feed us this year, no matter how much it hurts her feelings for me to tell her, “No!”  Some things are more important than her feelings, and if she were my child instead of my dog, I would explain that to her rather than let her do as she pleased and cost us a few hundred dollars worth of groceries. 

              So what do you do about people like that?  You do the same thing the Lord did for you when you were still that immature and selfish.  You tolerate, you teach, you show them a better way with the example of your own service and willingness to accept abuse or take on responsibilities that are not yours but that you do because they need doing and you are there.  You love them in a way they don’t deserve and yes, you rebuke when necessary and hope they won’t act childishly and run off to play somewhere else, where everyone will scratch the belly they offer, and let them be the only ones who matter and the only ones worth listening to.

              The Lord did all that for us, and he expects us to do it for them.  Some day maybe they will learn to be better than a silly little dog who thinks the world is here to scratch her belly.  Didn’t you?
 
And we exhort you, brethren, admonish the disorderly, encourage the fainthearted, support the weak, be longsuffering toward all. 1Thes 5:14
 
Dene Ward
 

Wrens are known for making their nests in strange places.  On the carport, the old exercise bike has become the place to hang things, including the old coffee can we use to scoop Chloe’s feed from the fifty pound bag, and then shove sideways on one handle bar until the next morning.  One Saturday afternoon, after Keith had used the can in the morning, a wren couple went to work right under our noses and built a nest inside it in less than an hour.  When we discovered it, Keith grabbed some duct tape and ran a piece along the side of the can onto the handlebar to hold it steady.  We both hated the thought of the wind or a jostle by one of us knocking the can to the ground, especially after the eggs were laid.

            We have been checking the nest every few days, bending down with a flashlight to look inside.  That mother is obviously devoted, sitting there staring at us through the beam, not moving a muscle though we are only a few feet away from her.  We try to make our intrusions short and no more than once every other day or so.  Last Saturday we looked in and saw a mouth.  An hour or so later there were three more--a fuzzy gray mound of down and four wide open mouths, swaying back and forth, eagerly searching for whatever we might have brought.  I hated to disappoint them.

            From time to time we see the parents flying back and forth.  They come with a mouthful and leave just a few seconds later—over and over and over.  The only time those tiny mouths are closed is when the babies are asleep.  While they are awake, mama and daddy get no rest for they are never satisfied.  It is never enough.

            That is exactly what God should see from us—wide open mouths.  If you think attending every service and even extra Bible studies makes you one who “hungers and thirsts after righteousness,” you have missed the point.  Certainly we need the nourishment provided when the flock is fed the word of Life, but that isn’t even half of it.  Like newborn infants, long for the spiritual milk that by it you may grow up unto salvation, Peter tells us in his first epistle, 2:1.  The point is the longing for the spiritual instead of the physical; understanding that the point of this life is training for the next.

            Yes, you need a good background in the scriptures.  I am often appalled at how poorly my brethren know them.  But where there is no desire for righteousness there will be no spirituality.  Where there is no longing for God, learning facts will simply be an intellectual exercise.  We must be like baby birds—nothing but a wide open mouth that will not be satisfied until the bread of life has completely filled it. 

            What are you longing for today?  Wealth will not satisfy.  Health will not satisfy.  Status and fame, not even our fifteen minutes’ worth, will satisfy.  The only true satisfaction can come from God. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore…For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water…, Rev 7:16-17.

            The only way to receive that promise—for your hunger and thirst to be filled--is to be hungry and thirsty in the first place. We should all be nothing less than another hungry mouth to feed.
 
As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever." John  6:57-58.                    

Dene Ward

The first few years I only had one catbird at my feeder, a chary fellow who only visited during winter when he couldn’t find anything easily on his own.  He sat clumsily on the suet cage, which was almost too small for him, and pecked away, but it only took a micro-movement from me on the other side of the window to scare him off.

            Although I had read that the catbird got its name from its call, I had never heard him utter a peep.  He quietly came to the square of suet, ate his fill, and left.  The other morning, as I sat by the window he flew into the nearest azalea on the other side of the feeder and I heard it, a “mew” just as clear and sweet as a newborn kitten’s.  And what caused him to mew?  There on the suet perched another catbird--he was jealous.  Suddenly he flew at the interloper and chased him away.   

            Within a week, a third catbird had joined the fray, this one a bit smaller and slimmer, probably a fledgling.  Now they all go at it.  It isn’t enough to chase one away and then eat your fill.  They think they must sit guard and keep the others from getting any of it.  This is not the catbird personality I had always seen before, and I hear that mew more often too.  Now I know what truly lies beneath those slate gray feathers.

            I have seen it happen with people too.  You think they are one sort of personality but when circumstances don’t go their way, suddenly they morph into someone you have never met before.  Sometimes that’s a good thing, like quiet mothers who instantly, and fiercely, protect their young, but others times it means we have not really become new creatures, we have just hidden the old one and stress made him rear his ugly head once again.

            Becoming a better person is difficult.  Baptism doesn’t instantly fix the flaws in your character.  They have deep-seated roots from childhood or traumatic experiences in your life.  It takes effort to change yourself.  You have to first realize where the problems lie.  Then you have to prepare yourself to meet those stressful situations with study, prayer and meditation, deciding ahead of time how you will react should the same thing happen again.  You have to learn to accept the help of others, even if it does come in the form of a stern rebuke or disapproving look.  Finally, you have to be on watch.  Most of us just let life happen to us, then wonder why we weren’t able to do better “after all these years,” as if time were the only thing that mattered.  Doing better must come from being better or it won’t last.

            God will not remove the stress from our lives.  He won’t make the trials suddenly disappear.  Any time we convert someone with the promise that all of their problems will now be solved, we are giving them false hopes.  The true hope is that now we have help with our problems, but only if we use it.  God does not allow trials so we will have an excuse for bad behavior but so we will become stronger and better able to handle those trials. 

            I watch those catbirds and wonder if I have really become a new creature.  Today it’s time to get up out of my chair and work on it.
 
For the love of Christ constrains us; because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died; and he died for all, that they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again…Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they have become new. 2 Cor 5:14, 15, 17                                                         
 
Dene Ward

Wrens are known for building nests in odd places and we have a couple who have proven the point.  They can’t seem to help themselves when it comes to building nests.  And fast?  In less than an hour they are ready to set up housekeeping.   Anything that is left open and alone for that amount of time is fair game.

            We’ve found nests in boxes of empty mason jars in the shed, and on the lawn mower seat under its protective tarp.  We’ve found them on the bristles of the push broom which hangs upside down near the ceiling of the carport.  We’ve found them in roof gutters, and draped plastic sheeting.  We’ve found them in flower pots, tomato vines, and empty buckets.

            We usually buy dog food in 50 lb bags at the feed store and keep it stored in a large plastic garbage can in the shed.  We carry Chloe’s daily allotment in an old three pound coffee can, which we then shove sideways on the handlebars of the old exercise bike until the next day’s feeding.  Last month we found a wren’s nest in that can, obviously built after Chloe had been fed the day before, hanging precariously, rocking in the breeze. 

            Immediately Keith duct-taped it more securely to the handlebars so it couldn’t be blown or jostled off, and found another old can to use for Chloe’s feed.  It has become something of a joke now—remember to put up the [whatever] before the wrens find it.

            This doesn’t happen just once a year.  The mother wren incubates the eggs for about 2 weeks and then both parents feed them until they can fly, about two weeks later.  Often, the last few days of feeding, the father takes over completely so the mother can start another nest.  In our climate, they often build a third nest after that one.  They are like little nest-building machines—wherever they can, whenever then can.

            Isn’t that the way we should be about the gospel?  Too many times we’re out there making judgments about where to sow the seed instead of strewing it about everywhere we can.  We decide who will and who won’t listen and worse, who we deem “worthy” to hear.

            That certainly isn’t what Jesus did.  He taught dishonest businessmen and immoral women.  He taught the upper class and the lowest of the low.  He taught the diseased and the disabled, as well as the hale and hearty blue collar workers.  He taught people who wanted to hear and people who just wanted to make trouble for him.  Shouldn’t we be following his example?

            Too many times we worry about the reception we will get.  When Jesus sent out the seventy, he didn’t say, “If you don’t think they’ll listen, then shake the dust off your feet and go elsewhere.”  What he said was, “If they don’t listen,” which means everyone had a chance to decline if that is what they chose to do.  We can’t seem to stand the possibility of rejection, not an auspicious trait for disciples of the one who was “despised and rejected of men.”

            We should be like wrens, speaking about our faith anywhere, even the most unlikely places, to anyone, even the most unlikely people.  Over and over and over, like we can’t help ourselves, like our lives depended upon it, because maybe they do.
 
Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.  Acts 20:26-27.
 
Dene Ward

The longer I live here, the more I realize that Florida is just plain weird.  None of the popular garden books work.  None of the advice on the gardening section of the morning shows make any sense.  They don't even come at the right time of year for us.  And having become a birder, I can tell you that we seem to have fewer of the birds pictured in the bird books.  Oh, we have a some of the ones you see up north all year, mainly cardinals, titmice, chickadees, phoebes, woodpeckers, blue jays and mockingbirds.  Then the water birds and larger birds of prey, like owls and hawks of various kinds.  But not goldfinches, not painted buntings, not black and white warblers, not yellow-rumped warblers, not even robins—except for a few brief weeks when they pass through on their migratory paths.

              And we didn't even see those few for years.  Not until we started setting out large shallow pans of water on top of the feeder poles.  Suddenly we were spending hours with binoculars and the bird book trying to figure out which was what.  Still, it took a while before the word passed among the bird population that water and food was free and easy on the Ward property.

              Four or five years ago we saw our first pair of goldfinches.  In the fall you can hardly miss them.  Their bright yellow feathers and contrasting black and white wings are plain as day, even without binoculars.  In the spring it's a bit tougher.  Having changed during winter, their feathers are drabber, almost olive, and the only way to tell them from the pine warblers are the faint streaks on the warblers' breasts.  After a couple of weeks, the goldfinches begin to molt and the bright yellow once again shows up, at least on the breeding males.  The non-breeding males are still drabber than the other males and have no black mark on their foreheads.  The females look a lot like those younger males and also sport a white patch on their rumps.  But it begins to be obvious that they are goldfinches, too.  It seems like they actually stayed a little longer this year before scooting back up north.

              My book tells me they often appear in flocks.  Must be another difference for Florida.  The first three years we only had the one pair.  Last year we suddenly had two pairs of goldfinches.  Then one day this past spring, I walked up to the window that looks out on our homemade aviary and there in the feed trough just outside the house was a whole flock of goldfinches happily pecking away.  I counted ten.  Ten!  Wow, I had hit the jackpot!

              So I stood there and watched for a while until they suddenly became aware of us and all flew off in a flash.  After that a couple of them took turns on the hanging feeders further away from the house.  I sat down and watched them a little longer.  You know what?  The two on the hanging feeder were every bit as cute and fun to watch, every bit as bright and cheerful a yellow as the ten had been.  They didn't lose their God-given glory just because there were fewer of them.

              And that made me wonder, why are we so impressed with numbers?  Why are we so impressed with titles?  Why are we so impressed with brand names and designer labels?  Why are we so impressed with outward appearance?  The more zeroes in a price tag, the more letters after a name, or the more awards on a shelf, the more we think of the person, the job, the car, the home, the neighborhood, the title and position.  And many times, the more wrong we are about what really matters.

              Better is a little, with righteousness, than great revenues with injustice. (Prov 16:8)

              How much better is it to get wisdom than gold! Yea, to get understanding is rather to be chosen than silver. (Prov 16:16)

              He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; And he that rules his spirit, than he that takes a city. (Prov 16:32)

              Better is the poor that walk in his integrity, Than he that is perverse in his ways, though he be rich. (Prov 28:6)

              One little goldfinch is every bit as fascinating to watch as a whole flock stretched out on a feeder, pecking not only at the seeds but sometimes each other.  One little goldfinch is just as yellow, just as cute, and just as worthy of my attention as fifty.  In fact, since he is the only one, I am usually a lot more grateful for him.
 
But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” (1Sam 16:7)
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Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” (John 7:24)
 
Dene Ward