Gems of Truth Taught By a Robin

One morning, about a week ago, I browsed the internet groggily, still in the process of awakening from sleep, when my mom dashed into the house, excited and concerned, clutching an adorable baby bird in her hands. She opened her hands to reveal a precious face, and a wide-open yellow beak that relentlessly demanded food.

The little bird had fallen out of its nest and landed near a busy walkway where people and dogs go by, and we’ve even seen snakes cross the walkway in the past. It wasn’t a safe place for the bird to be. There was only inches of grass between the bird and the walkway. The bird was in the direct sunlight, and dehydrating, and the mother bird was no where to be seen.

It wasn’t an embryo, and had a mixture of adult features and baby fluff; it was in the stage in-between embryo and fledgling. 

I felt keenly the pull to keep the adorable bird for a while and raise it, and also the pull that I don’t know how to raise a bird and the very real possibility we could make mistakes and it could die.

My mom had taken the car for work that morning and found the bird on a walk. She needed to go pick up the car, and while she was doing that quickly we decided to take that time to decide what to do with the bird.

I had a conversation with God about it. I realized the bird situation mirrored my ministry. There’s that pull to be involved in ministry because you love people and want to serve them, and then also that weighty responsibility that if you do the wrong thing or give the wrong information you can hurt people with those kinds of mistakes, and people’s eternal lives are on the line. While it’s not your job to get them into heaven and their struggle is their own to become an overcomer with Christ’s help, you certainly don’t want to put stumbling blocks in their way and make things harder for them, and you’re there to aid them in the process and give them important tools.

I took the time to evaluate both the bird and my ministry and ask God “Do I have the right motives here, or am I still too self-centered and there’s too much self that I’m bringing into my work?” With the bird I asked God if my desire to keep the bird was blocking me from being able to see clearly to know what was best for the bird.

I know that until Jesus comes back there will be some selfishness in my nature, and it’s my job to find where it is, and surrender it to Him, in degrees, more and more at each step. So I engaged in this soul-work while waiting for my mom to return.

The car took longer to repair than we thought and I found myself concerned over the bird, because they can’t go longer than about 45 minutes without food.

The fear of losing the bird and having a role in it dying was enough to cause me to reach a level of surrender where I was 100% on board with taking the bird to an animal rescue shelter. And I realized also that when it comes to people, this issue of ministry is too weighty of a matter to focus on things like our personal desires, such as I’d like to be involved in such and such ministry, or our personal inclinations.

I’ve heard people use the argument that they would really have joy if they served in such and such capacity, and that their strong desire and inclination to serve in that field must be an indication that God wants them to serve in that capacity, therefore they know it’s what they should do with their life. But, as Christians we’re called to make decisions based on principle, not desires. It’s possible to have desires for good things that are very natural and built into your nature and design, and yet they aren’t the right thing to do. If you make the decision from feelings – even strong natural ones that aren’t wrong – rather than asking if you’re the best person for the job and if you’re qualified and equipped to help, then people may very well suffer due to your choice, just as the bird could suffer and even die if I cared for it, when I didn’t know enough about caring for wild birds.

I was glad that the weight of the bird’s life brought me to a place of surrender, where it wasn’t about what I wanted or what brought me joy, but was about the bird’s life and the higher cause of having to answer to God for the decisions I made about the bird.

It’s not that we shouldn’t find joy in life, but as a Christian we live for God’s Name and His glory, and there is only peace and joy in making wise choices that actually glorify Him and meet the practical needs of the people He loves. We have a higher calling than doing what gives us feelings of joy. Our barometer is not our feelings, but truth, and the very real principles God has laid out in His Word for evaluating our role in His work. Our calling needs to be based on Bible truth, and a wise and judicious evaluation of our abilities and giftings, not simply our inclinations and personal goals. 

If we find for instance, that we love children, and want to work with children, but we’re actually much more skilled at teaching adults and working with adults, and we’re not very good with children, then even though we personally desire to work with them, we should teach adults instead. This choice can honor God, because we’ve made an honest assessment and we’re making an honest use of our skills and abilities.

By the time my mom arrived with the car and worms to feed the bird, I was ready to take the bird to an animal rescue, and had an urgency in doing this. However, none of the animal rescue places in the area would take a robin. They took only raptors.

So at that point it actually was our job to take care of this little bird and keep it alive. Because we realized that if we didn’t care for it, it probably would die, and since the animal rescue places were unwilling to take it, that meant we were the best people available to meet its needs.

We prayed for help from God to care for the bird in a way where we could keep it alive and meet its needs.

We researched as best we could on short notice, and began feeding it worms and blueberries. We learned the robin was a female.

The little robin warmed our hearts. But I also noticed that her warming my heart wasn’t as important as similar things used to be in my past. I recall the time I was three years old – my last encounter with a robin. The baby bird was hopping and not flying and this is how we knew we could catch it. My brother encouraged me to go grab the bird, and I came back with the baby bird in my hands, delighted beyond measure, begging my mom to let me keep it. At that time I was almost solely thinking about myself and my strong childish desire to own that little bird. But my mom did the right thing of course and made me put it back.

But with this bird encounter I was thinking much more about what God wanted and what was right, than I had done with animals in the past. In the past – especially as a kid – I’d taken on the responsibility of acquiring animals more from a place of what I desired, than asking God if it was really the right thing to do, and this is something I’ve been working to overcome and to get right. And I realized getting this right is more important than whether you get to own the animal or not.

If it’s not right to acquire the animal, then the peace that comes from not acquiring it and doing the right thing is greater than whatever feelings of joy the animal could give you.

And if it’s the right thing to do to acquire the animal, then the peace that comes with doing the right thing is greater than whatever joy the animal does give to you.

There’s something higher and more important than our personal desires here.

And as a 39-year-old woman who always wanted kids, but that never happened and it hasn’t been possible or right for me to have them, I’ve come to understand this same principle works with marriage and children as well.

There will never be anything more important to the Christian than serving God, and doing the right thing. Even if you have very strong maternal instincts or other desires, there is no peace in making those things idols, in insisting in having to have your way, even if God asks something different from you.

And we can’t make decisions as Christians based on desires alone. They have to be based on an honest evaluation using the principles found in the Word of God. If the thing we’re considering passes an honest evaluation, with counsel and input from parents and people we respect and trust in our lives, then we’ll know we’re doing the right thing by going forward, and we can know we’re within God’s will.

But feelings or inclinations or desires alone can’t tell us we’re within God’s will to make a certain choice.

There’s only peace in putting God first always in everything.

And those other things are things we can do without. They won’t make us or break us. I’ve heard some parents say their kids are their world – their whole reason for existing. This isn’t right. This makes idols of your kids which isn’t good for you or for them, and will arouse God’s rightful jealousy. Not only can you not be right with God while having idols, but you’ll also raise your kids to not put God first. Also, what if your kid died in a car accident – how could a parent get through such a horrible tragedy and have purpose and meaning to live the rest of their life if their kid was their everything? They wouldn’t be able to do it. Or how is the person who wants kids, but can’t have them for whatever reason supposed to go forward with profound meaning and joy if kids are the purpose of life? They wouldn’t be able to.

But if the purpose of life is glorifying God, then none of these other things make you or break you. The One you were created for gives you revelations of His love all through life, regardless of what happens with the other people in your life or the other situations in your life. The One who gave His life for You teaches You and walks with You and gives you His infinite love, a place in His work, and continual spiritual progress, deeper drafts of the well of life, and deeper knowledge of His Word. And this is the purpose of life, not the other things in life.

And so even though I got to raise this beautiful bird, there was more peace and joy in knowing I did things right and worked within God’s will and pleased Him, than there was in the bird herself. And I believe this is always how things work for the Christian.

All of God’s creation and creatures depict aspects and attributes of Himself. They were all given to serve Him and to point back to Him. This is why making them an idol, putting them first in our hearts, is completely out of place. The seen, tangible qualities of the world and animals and natural systems around us, God uses to teach us of His unseen, divine attributes.

This happy little robin had two qualities that really stood out and taught me something about God. The first was her calm dignity. She bonded with us but definitely not in the way other bird species do. She was always a bit reserved with a quiet strength to her, yet somehow managed to convey her love at the same time.

The second attribute was her pleasantness. She was just so sweet and pleasant to have in the house. Every evening as soon as the sun set she was out like a light, rustling down in the towel we put on the bottom of her plastic “cage”, looking like a mother hen in shape. And every morning as soon as the sun started coming up and the other birds began singing outside, we were met with her pleasant single chirp followed by two staccato higher chirps in succession.

Robins have a very distinct call, and the sound of gentle call noticeably raised our spirits and brought delight to our hearts.

She would then immediately need to be fed, and after feeding would rest for a little while, and then hop around her cage, exercising her legs and eventually her wings.

I was surprised by how feminine she was for an animal. I think women of today could learn much from the female robins about the need to have dignity and pleasantness, and about how truly uniting in a subtle but powerful way it is to a family when the women in a family have those attributes. Our robin united our home with her pleasant spirit.

For the whole day she needed almost constant worms. This shared project united my mom and I around an important goal. We had to make sure this bird ate every 45 minutes. 

The last day we had her she used her wings to jump up out of the cage and perch on the side of the container. She was fledging! She perched there in silence, balancing with her legs in such a way for the first time, completely motionless in her quiet dignity as her legs adjusted to the new function, and she somehow seemed surprised she was perching. I welled up with pride seeing her there, and it was a truly special and profound moment.

My mom didn’t want to name the bird, but I wanted to, and somehow we landed on the name Jewel. And then I thought we should name her something that meant “pleasant.” So we looked online and found all the girl names that mean “pleasant” and my mom chose “Marley”, which means “pleasant wood.” So on the last day we had her, before taking her to the animal rescue that thank goodness we’d finally found because we didn’t know how to take her from the fledgling stage to the independent stage where she could be released into the wild (and it would involve a lot of flying), we named her “Marley Jewel.”

My mom drove her to the animal rescue, and just in time too because she was doing a lot of jumping and attempting to fly.

The next morning it felt like something was missing from our lives when Marley Jewel’s sweet song didn’t greet us.

The whole experience with Marley Jewel brough to my mind how God has given every robin the ability to go through these steps, and unless some accident happens or something, each robin will succeed at growing from a hatchling, to a fledgling, to a grown bird. Each has a personal struggle, but all have success. Our robin’s success at jumping out of the container, growing, and perching, reminded me I need to trust God and His perfect process. While the struggle will be personal and will feel personal, the process is perfect, and God is able to lead all of His children successfully through the process of overcoming sin and defeating the devil and his temptations in their life. God is able to put the victor’s crown on all His children’s heads. And it’s important we don’t get so caught up in our personal feelings and hardships, that we forget that the process works for all, and that just as God lead Elijah or Moses, so He will be beside us in this same process, and giving us the same promises and divine power.

But there’s a way in which Marley Jewel is not like us. Marley Jewel doesn’t have a say in her choices. She moves by instinct. She doesn’t give up trying to fly, not due to courage or resilience, but due to God’s wonderous programming of her nature. And it really struck me how it wouldn’t be right for God to do the same for us. It wouldn’t be right for God to program into us this resiliency and perseverance to obey Him, to cooperate in His process, without choice. While it’s wonderful to see in a bird – and we can learn many lessons from the “faithfulness” of God’s creatures – it would definitely be all wrong for God to give human beings instincts that actuated us, rather than character and will.

You see, a human being must develop courage. A human being must develop faith and trust. A human being must be changed in character from a fallen, selfish character, to a holy character. And this is a process in which a person has a say. Unlike Marley Jewel, a person can choose to give up and go back to serving self, rather than to go on to victory. And it’s good and right that a person has this choice, otherwise we’d be creatures of instinct, without any ability to be truly Christlike, to be virtuous or holy. Just as birds can obey due to instinct, but they cannot truly worship due to will and choice, human beings would not be able to worship God if God guaranteed their success without their ongoing cooperation of their will.

Without the daily surrender of our will to God – by choice – we cannot walk with Him. We cannot have success. We cannot have victory. And there are some that want to believe that God programs us to persevere till the end, that everyone who takes on the name of Christian and is truly converted cannot and will not fail of completing the whole process and obtaining the victory, and that God will ensure it happens. But to ask God to do this is to ask Him to program us rather than involving the will and the cooperation of the human being. It’s asking Him to make us like Marley Jewel. And He can’t do that and be a good God, because we are not animals, we are morally autonomous beings with will and choice, and we give Him glory, not by obeying by instinct, but by surrendering our will to Him and cooperating with Him as a son or daughter. He who does all things well will do right by us always, and treat us with the dignity that aligns with our nature as beings made in His image.