"Birds of the Air"
In the scriptures birds are mentioned nearly 300 times. Specific species such as sparrows, eagles, ravens ostriches, mother hen, doves, the list goes on. Turtle doves are mentioned 66 times in the Old Testament, 11 times in the New Testament.
In Matthew 6: 25 - 26 Jesus reminds us to look at the birds of the air and how God takes care of them, and we are more valuable than they are, or in Matthew 10: 29 - 31 Jesus tells how God cares for the sparrows, worth only " half a penny" yet one can't fall to the ground without God knowing it, and again we are still more
valuable to Him.
I'm referencing these scriptures because on the farm this spring Grandpa and I have had encounters with the birds on the farm. We've had to postpone certain tasks we planned to do because birds decided to build their nests in areas where we wanted to work (we will get the work done after the fledglings have flown).
We've had some very severe storms that have had some very powerful winds come through this spring. One storm had 70 mph wind with horizontal rain. The trees and large shrubs that held the nests of robins, turtle doves, and the orioles whipped in the wind. I thought of these scriptures as the next morning the birds emerged from their nests unscathed.
Every year a Canadian Geese family builds their nest on the point that juts out into the lake. Grandpa and I
don't like to see that because the point goes under water during the spring rains. One evening during a storm the mother goose sat fast upon her nest, papa goose sat a ways off on guard, as the water rose closer and
closer to the nest. As night came and the storm continued, Grandpa and I were down hearted because we were sure the lake water would wash over the nest and the eggs would be lost. But the next morning the mother goose was still there, she was rolling the eggs farther upon the point and a few days later this goose family had 2 babies hatch. Also, the morning after a violent storm another goose family appeared on the bank of the little pond with four babies.
Living by a lake we have lots of barn swallows. They are good little hunters flying and darting about eating insects. They also build mud nests attaching them to inside corners of buildings. They don't mind at all building their little mud nests in the corner of our porch that I worked on cleaning this spring, setting out my patio furniture to sit on to enjoy the summer.
A barn swallow couple kept flitting up over the porch and sat on the rail. I thought," Oh no you don't, I'm not going to have you carrying mud up here on my clean porch." I remembered Great Grandma had some old plastic owls in the shed that she used in the garden, so I got them out and hung them on the porch to scare the birds into not building their nests there. Well it worked for a couple of days. Then one morning I looked out and found that they built their mud nest on top of the owls head (unfortunately I was unable to paste the picture to this story. I gave up. You win birds. I guess if they will take care of the insects, I can lend them a corner.
Yes God watches over the birds of the air, but more importantly He watches over us. Matthew 6: 26
"Look at the birds. They don't need to plant or harvest or put food in barns because your heavenly Father feeds them. And you are far more valuable to Him than they are."
God bless. Linda Shields