Good Morning, Father - Part 6 - Trust

Sometimes I clean out files and find things I have written and set aside then forgotten. When I rediscover these musings, it’s not unlike finding myself when I didn’t even know I was missing. 

I am going to share, over the coming posts, one at a time, a small collection of devotionals I wrote over a decade ago, titled, Good Morning, Father. In His unfathomable wisdom, He knew I would need these affirmations and faith strengthening words in a future time unknown to me as I typed them. And now the time has come.

May you be blessed with whatever you need.

For Him,

Meema

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Introduction 

Sunrise is the renewal of a promise. A chance to begin again, afresh, with all the bad choices of the previous days behind us, every new day is an opportunity to seek to serve God and use whatever time we have remaining to us better than we have ever done before.  We cannot know how many mornings we are granted, but if we make it through the night to see another dawn, we are given the gift of time, at least once more, to get it right. For by the amazing grace of our Sovereign God all the wrong living we have done in the past is forgiven and forgotten in the instant we are willing to surrender and move forward toward Him and His will, relinquishing our own.

Though the days we have wasted cannot be changed, the new one, unfolding in front of us, holds the promise to be the one that could make it all okay.

It’s our choice.

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Good Morning, Father,

I thought we were going to talk about patience this morning, while  I was sitting very still, my finger poised to hit the shutter button. Photographing hummingbirds does require a certain amount of patience.  But as I waited and watched your tiny winged creatures dart in and  out from their safe perches in the trees to the feeder and back, I realized there was something else to ponder, leaving the sticky  topic of patience for another day.

The hummingbirds that have claimed this feeder guard it against all intruders. Not being schooled in hummingbird culture, I don’t know why they are so territorial, but it appears to me it is likely that it’s just about the instinct of survival. They are doing what they are compelled to do. They happened upon this bounteous supply of life giving sustenance and they protect it for themselves with their lives. They aren’t about to share because the hummingbirds have no idea that I exist and can and would be willing to refill it for them indefinitely. 

As I studied their routine, flitting in to drink, then off to guard from a distance, I felt sorry for the Ruby-Throated who kept trying for a chance to partake. For a few moments a part of me wanted to find a way to thwart the sentinels who would not share. But nothing I could think of felt right. Every consideration went against nature and more to the point it went against my nature. It is not in my nature to intervene even if some of the birds must suffer from want and lack because of the choices of others. Of course, I would love to see them share and nurture each other, but I can’t make them. It would be artificial and tiring to be forever manipulating how they behaved. How satisfying it would be to see them realize it for themselves and behave nobly on their own.

And what will they do when I must stop filling the feeder in October so that they will go south for the winter? My desire to feed them is strong, and I dread watching them come to where the feeder was, hungry and desperate. It will be hard to watch. But I know that if I keep the feeder full, they will die from the harsh cold that they are not equipped to survive. The benevolence of my providing the feeder must not overcome the greater good of encouraging them to do what is in their best interest even though they don’t understand the bigger picture.

Even if they knew that I existed, or acknowledged me as their benefactor, would they be angry with me for removing the food they need? Would they hate me? Would they declare that I don’t or can’t exist because they are experiencing the hardship of an empty feeder? Would they determine that I am not fit to be their overseer or worthy of their trust because they see an empty feeder as unconscionable injustice at the hand of a capricious and unfeeling nonentity? 

And if some of them had evolved enough to believe that I existed and reached out in petition for the feeder to be returned, would they lose their faith if I didn’t do it? How many of them will surely die if they don’t see the importance of abandoning the spot where the feeder was and go south to avoid the coming freezing temperatures?

Oh, dear Father, is this how it feels to You, to love your children and wish to do for them, to long to guide them, and then have them deny or curse You when they can’t understand the hardships that must befall them and that make them move on? When they do not trust You?

I’m sorry, Father, for the heartache. I think I understand now, though I doubt I could survive the pain You must feel.

Your servant,

Meema