A Bird in the Hand
For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! Isaiah 30:18
How much faith do we have? Is it enough to wait days, months or even years? I don’t know about you, but I can get cranky in the drive-thru lane at Chick-fil-A. Janet Holm McHenry shares a delightful story of faith from All God’s Creatures.
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My granddaughter, Faith, thirteen, lives up to her name. She is faithful and faith filled. She works hard and knows that God will reward her efforts. But recently her faith was tested. For years she has wanted a bird. Her parents agreed but told her she needed to wait until the two bedrooms for her and her five siblings were painted and tiled—a bit more pet proof.
At first, they thought that process would take a couple of weeks, but as weeks became many months, Faith kept searching online for just the perfect cockatiel—a bird they all believed wouldn’t add too much chatter to the family of eight. Delay after delay meant that hoped-for-birds were sold to other buyers.
Finally, I watched as Brando, a three-month—old cockatiel hopped from the seller’s hand to Faith’s in the seller’s doorway. Gray with markings of white, yellow, and orange on the head, and crest that looked like feathers on a woman’s hat at the horse races.
It truly didn’t matter what the bird looked like, because the joy on Faith’s face was priceless. She had patiently waited for months, even years, and her reward now stood trustingly on her hand as if to say, so glad to meet you. I’ve been waiting for you.
That is what patient faith does. It defeats obstacles. It ignores naysayers. It pushes through discouragement and temptations to quit. And it looks to the loving character of God and trusts Him for His faithful direction and perfect timing. As I saw Brando hop to my granddaughter’s hand that day. I knew that Faith was not the only one seeing that God’s way was worth waiting for. I did, as well.
Patience is the calm acceptance that things can happen in a different order than the one you have imagined. David G. Allen