Happy Monday! “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” – Jim Elliot
As I awoke the other morning at my usual time and got into my usual routine, it seemed a normal day. After breakfast, I went to the living room to open the shutters, and a beautiful bougainvillea bush full of fuchsia-colored blooms caught my eye. The beauty overwhelmed me, and then I saw that hopping around the bush were a couple of redbirds. Actually, only one was a bright red—the male—and the other was a mousy brown with touches of red—the female. For a few moments, I drank in the scene, and my ordinary day took on a new “hue.”
God had shown Himself to me. I read this quote somewhere recently: “To see God in everything makes life the greatest adventure there is.” The rest of that day became anything but normal as I not only looked but also saw the beauty all around. How much we can easily miss, even seeing God Himself!
I Timothy 6:17 tells us that God gives us all things to enjoy. Sadly, we have made a mess of the garden over which we are to have dominion. Listening to the evening news or reading the headlines tells us this.
George Bernard Shaw once said, “If the other planets are inhabited, they must be using the earth as an insane asylum.” What an awful thought!
In Psalm 8, King David asked as he considered the work of God’s fingers—the moon, stars, animals, birds of the air, and fish of the sea—why God would be so mindful of man. However, since we are His final and greatest creation, He is ever mindful of us!
To see God in the beauty that is still in our “garden” is to realize the majesty and goodness of our Creator Who deserves our praise every day. Life can really become an adventure daily.
Reader, may you always see the redbirds.
by Beverly Hyles
From the Mondays with Beverly blog. Reprinted with permission.
