In His Line of Sight

Any parent knows about line of sight. Your peace is determined by your child remaining in it. As they try harder to remove themselves from it you become more determined they will not. (I could digress into a few paragraphs here about teenagers but I will stay on point.)


Our amazing Father who has invented beings "full of eyes" is accomplished at keeping us in His line of sight even when He is wounded or concerned by the things He sees: our sin, the harm others try to do to us, our sadness, our struggles. God doesn't feel such things? Bet me! My God wept at the grave of a brother-friend and when the city He loved rejected His goodness and love. Make no mistake- He cares...and He sees us. He has a plan to sustain and deliver us, to insure our safety during difficult moments.

Psalm 124 (Message)

A Pilgrim Song of David

1-5 If God hadn't been for us —all together now, Israel, sing out!—
If God hadn't been for us
when everyone went against us,
We would have been swallowed alive
by their violent anger,
Swept away by the flood of rage,
drowned in the torrent;
We would have lost our lives
in the wild, raging water.

6 Oh, blessed be God!
He didn't go off and leave us.
He didn't abandon us defenseless,
helpless as a rabbit in a pack of snarling dogs.

7 We've flown free from their fangs,
free of their traps, free as a bird.
Their grip is broken;
we're free as a bird in flight.

8 God's strong name is our help,
the same God who made heaven and earth.

A few years ago I noticed a tiny bird hopping on my front porch eating the seeds that fell from a feeder. My porch has lilac bushes close and the bird would hide there and come out when it was alone to eat. This flightless bird continued this throughout the summer. Unknown to the bird all that summer I was putting some of the best seeds where I knew she would find them. I didn't prune away the branches of the lilacs so she had better cover and the cats and dogs could not get her.

I worried about the coming winter as she remained flightless but she had tucked herself into a place where the the bushes were covered by an overhang and I continued to provide a banquet.

Spring and summer came and one day I noticed she was sitting in a hanging basket I had placed. The next I saw her she was upside down pulling seeds for herself from the feeder. I didn't see her after that because she had regained her wings and her life was more than my front porch.

Sometimes we are like that tiny flightless bird. I have a good friend who is feeling that way as I write this but she has a God who is keeping her in His line of sight and friends who come with our hands full of sacramental seed.

Are you finding yourself hiding in the bushes when your true place is soaring above the tree tops? Was winter hard? Take heart. Seasons change. Let God and friends encourage you. It will be well with you. You will "escape" and take flight again as the grip of your present circumstance is broken. You will sing, "Bless God for He did not go off and leave me!"

Our Father's perspective gives Him a view of our lives we need to acquire.

His eye truly is on the sparrow and He just as truly watches us.


Perspective

High above the ground
cradled between branches sound
ringed about in a nest of light
beauty profound and out of sight
unless like God you look down.

-Kat Cavanaugh LaMantia



I have plans to give you the future you hope for. (God as told to Jeremiah 29:11)

Nest by Frank Wilson. For a treat vist his site.
http://frankwilsonfineart.com/30112.html