Reflection
The Birds Are Not Impressed
Somewhere this morning, a sparrow is trusting God better than I am.
That is mildly embarrassing, but there it is. The bird has no five-year plan, no emergency fund, no name to defend. It simply receives the day. Meanwhile, I can turn one ordinary day into a private apocalypse before breakfast.
In Chronicles, Zechariah tells the truth, and the people stone him in the temple court. There is something almost unbearably human about that. We do not always hate truth because it is false. Often, we hate it because it arrives at the wrong time, uses the wrong tone, and interrupts the very impressive lies we were building a life around.
Joash had once been good. That is the frightening part. Evil does not always enter wearing horns. Sometimes it arrives as fatigue, flattery, fear, and the quiet need to keep important people pleased. One day you stop listening to God. The next day you are calling murder “stability.” A bit dramatic, perhaps, but history has a dark sense of humor.
Then Jesus points to birds and lilies, as if creation were one large, unpaid spiritual director.
He does not say life is easy. He says anxiety is a terrible master. Mammon is not only money. It is the nervous little god who whispers, “Unless you control everything, you will disappear.”
Maybe faith begins when we stop auditioning for our own salvation.
What truth are you avoiding because it would ask too much of you?
