This piece was written for the October issue of the Lee Creek Baptist Church newsletter, Grace & Peace.
One clear morning in September, I sat near a lakeside reading Psalm 84 while a pair of birds darted in and out of my vision. They chased each other like children between trees and bushes before disappearing into a wooden birdhouse nailed to the trunk of an oak tree.
It only took a few minutes in the still of the morning to realize the trees above me were alive with birds: cardinals, finches, chickadees, and mockingbirds.
There’s something about visiting the lake in fall that I love, when the summer hum has quieted, the boats rock gently in their harbors, and all the children are back in school. Autumn comes to the trees. There is enough silence to realize the place isn’t silent at all, but is wild with birds—not just the everyday backyard varieties, but pure white herons, gulls, ducks, and even a bald eagle that swooped in to snatch a fish off the water’s skin.
My eyes left their wandering that morning to return to Psalm 84:
“Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at Your altars, O LORD of hosts,
my King and my God” (Ps. 84:3).
I thought about all the birds in the trees above me. I thought about the sparrows back home that had built a nest in the light over our front door one spring. I remembered how newly hatched robins would sometimes fall from the trees in my backyard growing up, and how my little brother took fresh worms out to them each day until they were strong enough to fly off.
I realized that this kind of tender-handed compassion is the compassion of our King.
The Psalmist goes on to say that God is “a sun and a shield”—that is, a powerhouse of warmth and growth, but also a protective defense (Ps. 84:11). Like the walls of Jerusalem, the God of Israel shielded His people from enemy arrows even as He welcomed them home.
One writer reflecting on Psalm 84 noted that actual birds may very well have built their nests in the facades and eaves of the stone temple.* Not only did they build their home, but Mama Sparrow laid her young there without fear or threat.
Do we enter the doors of the throne room of our King with that kind of trust?
Do we believe our Father knows every hair on our head, bone in our body, and trouble in our soul—just as He knows when a bird falls from its nest (Matt. 10:29)?
Do we believe we are as welcome in His house as a sparrow at the altar?
Can we sing with the Psalmist that I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness (Ps. 84:10)?
The singer knew a truth we as Christians should cling to: there is no better place to nest than in the tender presence of our King and our God.
“Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
~ Hebrews 4:16
*”The Happiest Place in the Universe” by D. Blair Smith. From https://tabletalkmagazine.com/posts/the-happiest-place-in-the-universe-2020-10/
