A few weeks ago, a friend was telling me about her hummingbird feeder. She loves having hummingbirds around, so she bought a feeder to attract them. A couple of weeks went by and she didn’t see any hummingbirds come to the feeder. Frustrated, she figured it was something about the feeder so she bought a new one. Even after swapping out the feeders, she still didn’t see any hummingbirds at it. While she was sitting on her back porch one day, she decided to pray and ask God to send a hummingbird. As soon as she finished her prayer one flew up to the feeder and she has seen many more since.
Praying for God to send a hummingbird can seem like such a small, trivial thing. It is something that you might even wonder if it is worth praying for. Sometimes I find myself worrying about the things that I deem small and insignificant instead of bringing them to God. I convince myself that they are so trivial that it would be a waste of God’s time to present them to Him.
In Matthew 6:25-32, Jesus tells the people to check out the birds and the lilies. He tells them if God cares enough to provide for them, even though they don’t do anything to earn it, how much more does he care about us. Jesus tells them because of this, we don’t need to worry about how we will get the things we need. God will supply these things because He loves us. Then in Matthew 6:33 He says, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
This is a super popular verse but I think it is often used out of context. Many times (I’ve even been guilty of this) the verse is used to say why it is important to have a quiet time or go to church. While these things are definitely important, I don’t believe it was what Jesus was getting at. Jesus tells us not to worry about things because God will take care of us. He tells us to instead turn to God and God will take care of us. God will take care of us not because we are seeking Him, but because He loves us.
When Zeke is hungry, he doesn’t worry about how he is going to get food. He just comes to Angela and me and tells us he is hungry and asks for food. Because we love Zeke, we give him food. It had nothing to do with how much time he spent with us before he got hungry. It doesn’t matter how many fits he has thrown that day. We love him, he asked for food, we give him food.
The same is true about God. He isn’t supplying these things based on a scale of how much time I have spent with him. He isn’t basing it off how many right (or wrong) things I have done. God provides for me because He loves me. And he cares about even the smallest of details.
Philippians 4:6 says, “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” God doesn’t say only let big important requests made known to Him. He doesn’t say only present the things unless I think they are small and insignificant. He says lay it all on Him in prayer. If I hold back because I feel like requests I have are not important I will miss out on things God has for me. If God cares about and takes care of the birds and the lilies, how much more will He take care of me!
until next time…