Wee Winged Warriors

Bible Reading: 1 Samuel 25:2–25, 32–35

“Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another” (Romans 12:10)

A hummingbird feeder was suspended just outside the kitchen window by a wire. The feeder was an inverted plastic bottle filled with sugar water that emptied into a bright red dispenser with ten ports. It should have been possible for ten hummingbirds to drink at the same time, but this never happened. Though there were dozens of hungry birds, the hummers had never learned to share. They came to the feeder with two objectives: objective number two was to get a drink of sugar water, and objective number one was to make sure no one else got a drink. With fierce little squeaks they darted about, guarding access to the feeder.

Watching, the man wished he could line up all the hummingbirds on the clothesline and lecture them. He’d start by explaining how illogical and foolish their behavior was. Their aggressive behavior made for high stress and low satisfaction every day. But then he stopped in his tracks as he realized he was the one who should get in line first for a lecture. Wasn’t it just last week that he’d resisted Joe’s good idea for no other reason than that he hadn’t thought of it first? And hadn’t he recently refrained from giving his son a well-earned compliment because . . . well, why? What was it that made him want to be first, to have the biggest piece of pie, and to keep others quiet so he could talk?

The man bowed his head amid the chorus of angry hummingbird squeaks and prayed, “God, help me think more of others and less of myself.”

Within our passioned hearts instill
The calm that endeth strain and strife;
Make us thy ministers of life;
Purge us from lusts that curse and kill!
—W. M. Vories

From Paws on My Porch, by Gary Miller
© 2015 TGS International, PO Box 355, Berlin, Ohio 44610
Used by permission