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News and views from the German-language region of Europe

March 16, 2018

God's "feeding station"

Filed under Sabbath Thoughts

My father-in-law, who died in August 2016, was a bird watcher. Using his binoculars, he would look through a window on the south side of the house (the entire south wall of the house was divided into windows) and watch the birds that were in the yard. He had built a feeding stations some two meters from the house, and it was a daily place of refuge for the birds in the relatively short winter in southern Alabama.

In those weeks of cold weather the feeding station provided a wonderful analogy about our dependence on God. Those who "preached" the analogy were the birds themselves. In those weeks not a day would go by without the birds reminding us of something important about our relationship to God. Every morning the birds would arrive at the feeding station, every day they looked for the nourishment that they would find there. Their daily quest for nourishment was rewarded.

Psalm 104 reminds us of God's care for us: "These all wait for you, that you may give them their food in due season. What you give them they gather in; you open your hand, they are filled with good" (verses 27-28).

What is our daily feeding station? It is the word of God, the Holy Scriptures, that are like a table covered with healthy, nourishing dishes. God's "feeding station" provides everything we need for our daily life: wisdom, encouragement, comfort, instruction, promises – and, yes, also correction. God has prepared the table and tells us symbolically: "Get some food!" And He finds great joy in our doing so.

The feeding station my father-in-law built provided a place of daily security for a few birds in southern Alabama during the eight to ten weeks of winter. In a symbolic reference to the Lord's prayer, in which Jesus teaches us to pray "Give us this day our daily bread", God's "feeding station" is always available. Do we seek it our daily, knowing we will find the nourishment that we will need that day?

With these thoughts I wish everyone a rewarding Sabbath!

Paul Kieffer's blog with personal insights and news from the German-language region in Europe.

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