I know, I know, you were thinking I'm more like a European Finch or a Mannikin Finch, but I feel pretty good about my selection. Although this next statement will make me sound like Cliff from the show Cheers, as I spout obscure information, I still think it is applicable:
Because a finch's metabolism is very active, starvation can occur in as little as 24 hours.
I read that today because I am thinking about getting a bird. I find them to be the colorful punctuation in the song of creation God sang long ago. (Not sure if someone else compared birds to punctuation, if they did, sorry I stole that.) But what that sentence made me realize is that my faith is the same way.
I have a fast faith metabolism. I process or burn up the energy I get from God and the Bible pretty quickly. Life is not always good, it is easy to expend the small amount of encouragement you get from a morning quiet time in the period of a day. And when I go without God for a day, whether that is without prayer or Bible or fellowship, I starve.
I can't make it passed 24 hours. I make bad decisions. I morally and emotionally starve.
I need to do a better job of this. I need to spend more time with God. I need to remember the Australian Grass Finch the next time I skip my quiet time.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
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5 comments:
I didn't know that about finches but I did know that about not spending time with the Lord on a daily basis. I found out the hard way too, I might add!
Amen.
Chirp, chirp.
You're probably being a little hard on yourself, but I get where you're coming from. A friend of mine compared bible study to his interest in C. S. Lewis. He explained that he could read every book written by Lewis or about Lewis, but that doesn't get him any closer to "knowing" the man. At best, he's just a pretty good C. S. Lewis historian. It's the same way with the Bible. We can know all about God without really knowing God.
Sometimes I study the bible to know about God, but more often, before I open it, I ask God to teach me something about Him or something about myself that He's wanting me to know. It's been amazing what He has revealed to me in scriptures that I've read many times before but never really heard.
wow... i used to hate birds... just as pets... not as creation.. but you have given me a beautiful new filter and reminder of something i too need to be better at...
I've been going through some rough times with changing majors in college and my family selling the house I grew up in, etc. It's been a good two weeks since I've had quality time with God. I was way past starving and it was the first time I understood what it meant to die with Christ. Because without God, we are dead. Without my quiet time, without prayer, without the Word, without that hope, I felt dead. This also caused me to make bad decisions. My boyfriend and I have been happily dating for 2 years but once I took God out of the picture, even we as a couple didn't make sense anymore. I couldn't understand what was wrong with me until I dropped down to my knees one night.
The past couple days, I've started praying again and doing daily devotionals and talking to my roommate about what's been going on and it's really felt like a rebirth. Like I'm alive again. Funny how the Bible is absolutely right like that.
I like how you're honest about your short comings as a human being trying to follow a perfect God. Just because we know what to do doesn't mean we're great at it.
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