Biting the Hand that Feeds You

Friends of mine know that I really like hummingbirds.  In fact, I’m one of the guys that keeps a feeder out all winter.  I recently read that Anna’s hummingbirds are now wintering in the Seattle area because so many people are putting out feeders and planting shrubs that flower in the winter.  It has actually changed their migration pattern!

Anyway, I was outside today.  Doing a little yard cleanup.  I have one beautifully colored fellow that stands on a branch like a sentry.  Hummingbirds are highly territorial.  So he was just guarding the spot where he knows food is readily available.  And I have watched him run off other birds that try to use “his feeder.”

So I am outside, and all of a sudden I hear a “chirp.”  And I watch him hover about 20 feet over my head.  Periodically he would dive and give out a “chirp.”  It was his warning sign that I was getting too close to his feeder.  He was warning me to get away.

Here’s this little bird that weighs about as much as a big paperclip, and he is attempting to shoo me away.  What’s more, he had no idea that he was attempting to drive away the very hand that feeds him!  The hand that keeps him alive in the cold of winter.

Made me wonder how many times I act like that with God.  How many times I look at what God is doing and shake my head with misunderstanding.  Or worse, I try to drive Him away.  Like the hummingbird, I do it with the best of intentions.  I think I am guarding something of great value.  And perhaps I don’t even recognize that it is God.  Much like the hummingbird, I attempt to sever the my very lifeblood.

I will not be driven away.  I will continue to feed the little guy.  He just brings me joy, and I can’t help myself from liking him.  My Father treats me with the same affection.  He cannot help Himself from loving me for Christ lives within.  The little bird will never comprehend the grace afforded him, and likely neither will I.