By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer

Recently, I spent time with my youngest granddaughter watching a hummingbird through my office window.

To her, the tiny bird was a marvelous, magical creature.

She was fascinated by the movement of it’s tail. I understood how it worked, knew it functioned as a rudder for aerial acrobatics.

Unlike me, she watched the flitting hummer, captivated by its quick movement because she didn’t understand how it worked.

Observing the common, everyday bird through her inexperienced, 4-year-old eyes let me see the winged wonder more clearly and experience again the fresh joy of discovery.

Could such an undertone have colored the words of Jesus when he said, “… unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”? (Matthew 18:3 NIV). 

I’ve had to give Jesus’ conditional phrasing serious thought, for he wasted no words.

I suspect that changing and becoming like a child has to do with unhurried observation, unfaltering faith, and unquestioning trust. Children excel in such innocence. At least until they spend enough time around us hurried, flustered, short-tempered grownups and eventually learn to emulate our behavior.

Maybe we need to slow down to wonder-speed, take a closer look, and marvel at God’s handiwork around us.

Maybe we should take him at his word when he says he loves us unconditionally.

And maybe we should trust him to lift us on the wings of majestic eagles – and tiny, insignificant hummingbirds.

~

Elizabeth had been enjoying the outing, feeding her hungry soul on the scenes of her childhood, and marveling at the graceful ease with which that otherwise gangly dog loped across the grassland. She’d let her guard down again, in spite of her resolve, and Sheriff Garrett Wilson had picked it up and run off with it, the opportunistic lout.

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(c) 2018 Davalynn Spencer, all rights reserved.