Now is the time... To Look Around & See

Lift up your eyes, look around and see…. Isaiah 39:18

I had a visitor again today… probably because I threw him a tidbit of ham yesterday, and he figures he’s onto a good thing. I smiled as I looked out of the kitchen window and saw the Kookaburra sitting on the railing of the deck. It’s usually Colin with the soft heart who’s wanting to feed the kookas and me saying “no, they have to be wild birds and feed themselves”. I weakened and threw him a couple of scraps which he quickly pounced on with my admonition ringing in his birdy ears, “Now this is extra, you go hunt your own food.”

Finishing up in the kitchen I took my magazine and coffee and sat at the table on the deck in the afternoon sun. Soon Mr Kooka joined me again. He sat on the railing for a while then suddenly flew down to the ground. Our garden is a bush garden with a lot of woodchip mulch covering all the ground around the native shrubs. There is no bare earth to be seen. He poked his long sharp beak in through the chips and brought his head up, cocking it sideways to look into the small hole he’d dug. He waited a moment then dug again and flew back onto the railing. In his mouth was a large curly grub. It was as if he was proving to me that he still knew how to fend for himself!

The thing that baffles me is that I see this happen over and over again and I don’t have any idea how the kookaburra can detect movement of a grub underground yet come up with one every time. These birds sit on the fencepost, railing, or limb of a tree seeming to be just relaxing and enjoying the day but they are really on the lookout all the time. I think there’s a lesson for us here. The Bible tells us to be watchful for our enemy who is out to destroy us (1 Peter 5:8), but I think there is another kind of watchfulness we need to have too. We need to look around and see what God is doing and be ready to respond. We need to train our eyes to ‘see’ what cannot be seen to the eye. It’s hard to describe but it comes by revelation of the Holy Spirit at work within us as we tune into God.

It may be in the form of subtle changes you observe in someone or some situation you have been praying about. It may be practical help that you sense someone needing, or it may be a kind or encouraging word you feel led to speak to someone who looks despondent. God is always at work around us but often we miss it because we are not tuned in to his ‘radar’.

Let’s determine to be more watchful for opportunities to get in on what God is doing and do our part in working with him to accomplish his purposes in our world.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, help me to lift up my eyes from the busyness of life’s tasks and look around me to see what you are doing in my part of your world. Help me to be ready to serve you when I see opportunities arise. Amen