My devotional book of choice during this Advent season is Behold: A Christmas Advent Journey, by Christee Gee. The author invites us to keep a posture of heightened awareness of Christ’s presence and activity around us in our days, the special and the ordinary alike. Some of the observations I have noted so far in my journal are:
A beautiful pink sunrise
A bright red Cardinal perched on a snowy branch outside my kitchen window
My sister’s message about how God is delighting her in the gift of her new job
My 2-year-old granddaughter’s request for her mother to read her a favorite book,
The “Nutcrapper”
We are constantly surrounded by these divine visitations, but how often they go unnoticed. On a recent stay in Florida, as my husband and I watched a familiar scene of a row of pelicans resting on a breaker wall, I saw it anew. It was as if God spoke to me the thought, “Behold the avian feast”. I watched as the birds took turns flying up and then swooping down to retrieve a fish. Each in turn would retrieve his fish, return to his spot on the wall, swallow his catch, then perch contentedly.
God was faithful to supply a bounty of food, but the pelicans had a part to play. He did not just drop it into their mouths; they had to fly and catch their fish. Isn’t that a poignant picture of our divine partnership with the Creator? We do not earn His abundant provisions, nor do we receive them with inert passivity. He allows us the privilege and responsibility of actively participating in the receiving and stewarding of His blessings.
“Then God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground’.”
(Genesis 1:28)