Keys of the Kingdom: Day Thirty- eight
Psalm 84, vs 3
“The sparrow has found a nest, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young…”
I was enjoying myself outdoors and happened to look up and see a barn swallows nest built against the rafters of our small barn. A swallow will first find a structure where there is a supply of mud close by. It will carry mud and twigs in its little beak, making trip after trip. Then it carefully constructs its nest, placing the mud on a board close to the ceiling of the barn, creating a mud-paste type of structures. The outside of the nest is very solid and very secure. Yet the inside is lined with down feathers and is a soft, warm, and inviting!
Why has God made the swallows to build their nests the way they do? Just by “instinct ” they know that the safest place is up against a wall. There is an expression that we use “up against the wall” to describe a place that is hard and you feel that you are really stuck or trapped. Have you felt that way sometimes?
(picture of barn swallow putting a feather in its nest)
A few weeks ago one of the boys in the Daniel Prayer Group shared how in a dream God came and pulled something out of his heart and afterwards gave him a cross. Now that doesn’t make much sense you may say! But I think what God took out of his heart was his wanting to do things his own way, and giving him the opportunity to go God’s way.
You see before Jesus died on the cross, he had a choice to not die for us. BUT He chose to go God’s way no matter what it cost. It is the same for us, when we go to Jesus in the hard times when we are stuck, we say that we will trust Him even when it is hard and we are “up against a wall” like the swallow.. The cross is the place where our will and God’s will cross each other. We want to go one way, and God says… No..this way is better.
In Gods’ presence we find peace and the secret place of safety, just like inside the nest, BUT it is often through the hard times that God brings us there. The swallow has to build the mud outside of the nest first. As Christians we are not promised a life without problems! It is actually in these times when He is able to help our character to grow more like sons and daughters of the King, if we choose to come close to Him. What is so neat about the picture that David paints in Psalm 84 is that the nest is more than an emergency shelter. Inside the nest is where you can live all the time, in peace even when there are storms outside.
*Adapted by article by Michal Ann Goll “Shelter of a swallow”
Read James 1:2-5
Write down in your journal all the things that you are finding hard right now. Talk to God about them. In what ways are these things helping you become more patient, or kind or loving, or generous…
Then Thank Him that these things are giving you the opportunity to become more like Jesus.
