God understands our awkward lurches and still loves us

 

Have you ever watched baby birds learning to fly?

 

I’ve marveled while watching a mama bird train her little ones in our neighbor’s yard. It’s as if she chirps out, “Watch me! Do what I do!” And then she flies from birdhouse to telephone wire, and her little birdie flails its wings and follows. 

 

Next, she flies from telephone wire to rose bush, her baby flapping its way to her side.

 

Then she soars from the rose bush back to the roof of the birdhouse. The babe flutters its wings, hesitates, wavers, flaps those wings hard, lurches upward, and stumbles onto the roof with a less-than-graceful plunk.

 

In Lomalinda, I was like a baby bird learning to fly. God blessed me with a number of “mama birds,” lovely people who gently showed me how to live life there in that out-of-the-way place—people like Karen McIntosh, Ruth Hockett, and others I’ll tell you about in coming weeks.

 

Their generous help reminds me of Deuteronomy 32:11 and God caring for Israel the way a mother eagle cares for her young: she hovers over them, spreading her wings. She gets them going and watches over them, carrying them on her wings.

 

That’s what several Lomalinda people did for me—they got me going, and in the process, I made some wobbly attempts and suffered a few awkward lurches. They checked in on me and kept cheering me on, “Watch me! Do what I do!” And, when necessary, they carried me on their wings to soften my less-than-graceful plunks and thuds.

 

God was so good to send those dear people to me. And now that I think of it, no doubt they, too, floundered and got flustered when they were new to Lomalinda. No doubt even the seasoned ones didn’t get everything right all the time.

 

They had already experienced what Teddy Roosevelt spoke of: 

“It is only through labor and painful effort, 

by grim energy and resolute courage, 

that we move on to better things.” 

They were modeling for me how to live that way.

They, like me, were recipients of God’s generous, gentle grace.

 

No matter what our struggles were, 

or are, or will be, 

we can live day by day wrapped in His loving arms. 

We can enjoy His approving smile. 

We can live with hope.

 

As A.W. Tozer said, “We please [God] most not by frantically trying to make ourselves good, but [by] throwing ourselves into His arms with all our imperfections and believing that He understands everything—and still loves us” (A.W. Tozer, The Root of Righteousness).