THE CHILDREN'S FEATHERED FRIENDS

I expect the sparrows were the first birds you thought of when you read this heading. They are so common that we often overlook them, but our Father who is in the heavens is great enough to be thinking of them always, as He does of all His creatures. In one verse of scripture the word for a young sparrow is used and when the birds become old and fall off their perches to the ground our Father is still not unmindful of them. The Lord Jesus would say to us what He said to the apostles, "Fear not; ye are better than many sparrows".

On the maiden voyage of a great ocean liner, the 'Queen Mary', a sparrow had flown on board. Later, when out at sea, it was discovered asleep on one of the ship's lifeboats! The little bird was put into a cage and looked after by the crew, taken to America and brought back to this country to be let loose in the air. How happy it must have been to be free again! Actually it had been a captive by its own fault but was nevertheless cared for. So it is with the sinner; in fact it is the very goodness of God that leads us to repentance.

The story of the sparrow reminds us of the living bird, dipped in blood, which was let loose in the open fields when a leper was cleansed. An unrepentant sinner is in God's sight what a diseased leper is in man's sight; the very letters of the word, put backwards, say 'repel'. But when Jesus was here He was not repelled by the lepers because He came for all who needed healing. Now by His shed blood and the running - or living - water of the Holy Spirit every believer can be as free from sin as the little sparrow became free from its cage.

Older children will be able to think of at least ten familiar birds mentioned in the Bible; and we can learn from them all. For instance the ostrich has no wisdom of its own but it survives by that of its Creator. Ravens are so 'ravenous' that they are said sometimes even to eat their own young, yet they brought meat and bread twice a day to the prophet Elijah. We rather despise pigeons but it was a young pair of these birds or doves that were brought as a thank-offering to God by the mother of Jesus. Again, we may wonder how the hen can count all her chicks when they nestle under her wings, yet the Lord knows even more surely those who are His redeemed ones. Are you amongst the many such?

J.C.Evershed