I took a run today to my favorite park. I bundled up (since it’s only 32 degrees out), tuned my iPod to some worship music and hit the sidewalk. As I ran, I just tried to worship along with the songs. When I got to the park, I paused my tunes, slowed to a walking pace, and entered into a time of silent prayer by simply repeating the prayer of 1 Samuel 3:10, “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.”
It’s often awkward shifting into silence. I am in such a habit of talking that it is sometimes hard to quiet my inner voice that just wants to keep asking God for stuff. It can be even harder to be silent with my eyes open but walking with my eyes closed didn’t seem like a very good option in a city park. So, as I walked down the path I just looked around and asked God to show me something.
It wasn’t long before I noticed a bird soaring above me. No, not like a dove descending from heaven, just a regular bird. As I looked more closely I noticed that it had what looked like a cracker in its mouth. Now, I highly doubt that it was a cracker, because where would a bird get a cracker? But that’s just what it looked like. Immediately I had some thoughts. I first thought of the bird’s life. It was simply being a bird. I thought of the bird’s day and how the bird may have been feeling (I know it may sound weird to think of what birds may be feeling but that is simply what I thought). I wondered if it was anxious or trusting. I wondered if it was worried about tomorrow. I noticed the cracker and I was reminded of Matthew 6:26 "Consider the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"
I continued to watch the bird as I walked. It was barely even flapping its wings but it was flying and turning and floating in the air. The wind was doing all of the work. I thought about my own life, and how I often want to do the work but it is the work of the Spirit. I am simply along for the ride.
The bird landed out of site and I turned my attention to listening again. Soon I heard what sounded like a waterfall (except there is no waterfall… well, let me clarify that. This park actually has a large man made waterfall, but it is closed for the winter). I looked around because I figured what I was hearing was a car with a bad muffler or something, but the sound continued. Eventually I figured out that the noise was coming from the tall swamp grass blowing in the wind. I thought, there’s that wind again, this time giving grass a voice. It is funny that God can make grass sound like a waterfall. But the grass alone wouldn’t make any sound at all without the wind.
About that time I looked down and noticed something strange. The particular section of the park I was in is notorious for goose poo. But the geese were gone and the poo was mostly gone too. It was nice not to have to tiptoe as if I were in a mine field. Then I asked God the strangest question that I think I have ever asked God. I said, “What’s with the goose poo?”
Silence. I started to get cold. I had broken a sweat on my run over to the park and now that I had been walking for a while I was cooling down and really starting to get chilly from the brisk winter wind. I started jogging to warm back up again, and then it dawned on me. The wind held the bird aloft, gave the grass a voice, and moved the geese where God wanted them to go.
I finished the circle trail around this park and hit play on my iPod as I turned toward home. The song that played next was called “If You Say Go” and it goes like this,
If you say go, we will go
If you say wait, we will wait
If you say step out on the water and they say it can’t be done
We’ll fix our eyes on you and we will come
If you call us to the fire You will not withdraw Your hand
We’ll gaze into the flames and look for You
I thought about the geese who were moved south at the beckoning of God. I thought about the birds that had waited and were held by the wind and fed by the hand of God. I thought about the grass doing what can’t be done… speaking.
It was an interesting walk in the park. There are a lot of parallels with things that God is doing in me these days. I am still processing it all.
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