Depending on God

​Helen sent me an email a couple of weeks ago, telling me that there were goslings by the lake! She knows I am keen on birds, and that I had counted the Cape Barren Geese on the Lara Lakes a few months ago. I had found twenty that day. A few weeks ago, I mooched around there in the car again and was a bit surprised to notice that numbers were down. Now I know why! Even though it is early in the season, half the birds are sitting on eggs!
I mentioned the goslings to Joan and Esther, as I know they like birds too. Soon after, Esther sent me some beautiful pics she had just taken of the proud parents and their five beautiful little black-and-white striped chicks on the grass near the lake. I look forward to seeing them, and many others, when I return to Lara in a couple of weeks.
 
A female magpie has just completed her nest in the big tree behind my house.  The pair of Red Wattlebirds which regularly nest in the trees at the front, are getting restive. What delightful signs of on-going life are all these. God provides for his creatures even, maybe especially, through the cold and wet.
 
Jesus tells us: ‘Look at the birds of the air: they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.’ Matthew’s gospel again, 6:26. Their food is abundantly present, but they must do their own foraging, of course!
 
Last week I heard from some friends who work as missionaries in Indonesia. They are concerned for themselves, their students, and their families in the pandemic, as numbers of infected people are growing rapidly there. They are praying for wisdom for all, especially themselves. They commented on the attitude of Indonesian friends:
‘… the fact that they are used to living one day at a time, depending on God to provide for their daily needs, has better equipped them to face this crisis than we are. We are so thankful for their example, and pray that we might learn greater day-by-day dependence on God.’
 
Jesus says, in verse 27, ‘Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?’ God knows the length of our days, and in all of them we are his treasures. He cares for us. ‘Look to him, and be radiant,’ as Leon reminded us last Sunday. Greater dependence on God.
 
Our times are in His hands. With the change in the situation in Victoria this week, it would be easy for us to have an increased burden of worry, even panic. But pandemics are not new: they had them in Jesus’ day and he tells us to cast off the burden of anxiety. Of course, we are to be realistic, to take every sensible precaution, doing our own ‘foraging’, but in the midst of that to trust ourselves and our lives to Him.
 
In faith, we bring our needs to God, the needs of those we love, our community, and our leaders in the midst of the Covid19 pandemic, and those who have asked for our prayers.
 
Day by day dependence on God is a lesson we all must continually learn.