The Hummingbird

I find the humming bird to be so fascinating.

Perhaps a bit intimidating to encounter up close. When hovering, hummingbirds hold their bodies upright and flap their wings horizontally in a shallow figure-8. As the wings swing back they tilt flat for a moment before the wings are drawn
Most hummingbirds flap their wings about 50 or so times a second, which is why when you look at them all you can see is a blur. I find them delicate and graceful to watch as Hummingbirds can fly right, left, up, down, backwards, even upside down. While other birds get their flight power from the downstroke only, hummingbirds have strength on the up-stroke.

Hummers have a fast breathing rate, a fast heartbeat, and a high body temperature. They must feed every 10 minutes or so all day, and they may consume 2/3 of their body weight in a single day.A major part of a hummingbird's diet is sugar. They get it from flower nectar and tree sap.

Hummingbird bills are long and tapered, perfectly suited for probing into the center of tubular flowers for the nectar, which they take up at the rate of about 13 licks a second. Often one can see long translucent tongues spilling out of their long beaks, licking the air, as they approach bright colored flowers.

I had the fun of watching one outside my window this morning. My little hummingbird was hungry and he taught me something.

We have across the front of the house about six flower boxes. We debated for a little while about putting real flowers in, or putting in silk flowers. It makes a big difference to ME, but after some discussion we settled on the idea of silk flowers due to the fact that we wouldn't be living here at our house all summer long. They look fine. They look real, actually. My hummingbird thought so too.

He was rather flustered by my flowers as he moved from one to the next, trying unsuccessfully, to get the sweet nectar from my real looking, but fake, flowers.

I thought immediatly of myself and of my need for sustanance; for food. Not the kind that sustains me physically. The kind that sustains me spiritually.

How often I am like that little hummingbird, who goes looking for his needs to be met, and searches for it, often frantically, in things that are FAKE or FALSE.

The Word says, " Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them."

I know I am stretching this verse, but here it goes:

The Heavenly Father feeds me. He feeds me physically, and He alone can meet the spiritual needs in my heart and in my life. How often I turn to the world. Like my silk flowers, they resemble that which I need in order to be fed. They are enticing and there in front of me. But the promises of this world for fulfillment and peace and security and status, and acceptance are just... well, they are fake. Phoney. Imitators of the Truth. It is a futile to put my hope into the world as it was for my little hummingbird to fly from one flower to the next until he was weary, tired, and more empty than when he came to my window.

It is why John writes, " Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world- the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions-is not from the Father but is from the world. AND THE WORLD IS PASSING AWAY along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever."

My relationship with God provides for me life. Real, life. Real hope, real joy, real security, real peace. I won't find it in the silk flowers of this world. I will only find it in the real deal. The sweet, satisifying and only TRUE God.

Hummers have good memory; they can remember food sources from previous years. Oh, that I would remember yet another lesson from the Hummingbird and would not return to those things that have left me hungry and longing for real food, but would remember to return to the "place" where I find my true hunger filled.

"And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know HIM WHO IS TRUE; and we are in Him WHO IS TRUE, in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourself from idols." I John 5:20,21