The eyes of all wait upon you, O LORD, and you give them their food in due season. You open wide your hand and satisfy the needs of every living creature (Psalm 145).
A few months ago, birds in our neck of the woods were busy gathering sticks, twigs, strings, and other assorted bric-a-brac. They were building nests and getting things ready for what you and I would recognize as the “next” generation. For birds, though, there isn’t a next generation; there’s just life.
The natural world is a scary place, of course. Dangers abound: snakes and coyotes, birds of prey and mammalian carnivores, hooligans bored out of their gourds making mischief of one kind or another.
It is that last category I have never understood. Oh, I understand boredom; believe me, but to knock a nest out of a tree for the fun of it, or to smash a mailbox with a bat on a drive-by (as a “prank”), or to spray-paint buildings and fences that others must clean and repair – those things just never make sense to me.
Be that as it may, the point is the world is a dangerous place, and nature has provided each creature with mechanisms and means to survive the hazards of life. I think that is part of what the psalmist means when he writes: The eyes of all wait upon you, O Lord, and you give them their food in due season.
He does not imagine the world’s flora and fauna sitting back waiting passively to be fed from the hand of God; rather, he proclaims that God is the source of all we need. More than that, what God provides, God provides with complete, joyous abandon; with open-handed generosity: “You open wide your hand,” he says, “and satisfy the needs of every living creature.”
Creatures in the wild know this intuitively. They scurry, creep, crawl, and hunt according to their nature. Their senses are attuned to finding what they need – just as God designed them to. There is no city hall to which birds must apply for building permits during the nesting season; they just build. There are no grocery stores to which they must flock if they wish to eat; they just hunt.
So it is for us. That’s not to say humans shouldn’t have city halls, county courthouses, or grocery stores. Heaven forbid! I am thankful for building codes that ensure (when followed) that our abodes are safe; and if I had to hunt for food I would be in a world of hurt, for I have a hard enough time in my hunt for matching socks each morning!
No, the point is that we have what we need all around us. Stores, shops, and offices make it easier for us to take care of business and to enjoy the luxury of leisure time (when we can find it). Our communal approach to life has many advantages for us, but it also has its dark side.
The world we have made – rapid transportation, spacious malls, bright lights, and whiz-bang gadgetry – has, for many, erased from our minds the God who brought us into being, who watches over us like a mother watches over a child, or who feeds and nurtures us with love and affection.
We consider ourselves “self-sufficient” and forget the One who sustains us with vigilant care, compassion, and devotion.
In our self-imposed amnesia, we forget our creator and make like little Jack Horner:
Little Jack Horner / Sat in the corner / Eating a Christmas pie / He put in his thumb / And pulled out a plum / And said 'What a good boy am I!
We trivialize God, glorify the self, and consider the most modest accomplishment worthy of trumpets and fanfare. How sad.
And yet God does not close the hand and make a fist; the hand of God remains open. God awaits not in hooligan impatience, but in active living; hand outstretched to feed, caress, embrace, and guide, for that is what God does.
God’s generosity knows no bounds. We are free to spread our wings and fly; to come and go and find our rest; we’re free to make a better place, for God’s heart is now our nest.
That’s just how it should be in this, our world. Shalom!
No comments:
Post a Comment