The birds are singing again

Who is ready for Spring raise your hand…

Oh yes, I see you all out there, waving frantically!!  Me too!!

Ah Spring!  Don’t you just LOVE it?!

Spring means the snow is melting,

flowers are blooming,

the weather is getting warmer,

and the birds are singing!

The birds are singing…a true sign of Spring!

But today I’m not talking about chickadees, blue jays, wrens, cardinals and robins singing.  I’m talking about the birds that sing in your (and my) heart.  They sing because “all is well” between you and the Lord.

Recently my birds quit singing…

{Note: I use the word “you” throughout this post but really I mean me.  My hope and prayer is that it will be a blessing and help to others, as I share what the Lord is trying to teach me…yes, little ole hard-headed me!}

Have you ever tried to pray and you just felt like you weren’t getting through?

Maybe you weren’t feeling good, your brain was foggy and you chalked it up to that.

Maybe you had more things to get done in a day than you had time for, and you just figured you were being distracted with it all.

Maybe you’re overwhelmed with financial decisions, bills are piling up and your husband just got laid off.

You knew the “birds weren’t singing” in your heart, and again you chalked it up to all the above and any other thing that’s going on in your world at the moment.

Whatever the reason…you just felt like you had to “plow” through and get it done.  Yet you were still left feeling like something just wasn’t right.  When day after day goes by and things still haven’t cleared up, you begin to wonder…

You wonder.  Yet there’s that niggling feeling deep inside, because in the midst of it all…there’s been that still small Voice, whispering in your heart that there is something that needs to go.  The Voice is so quiet that you can easily shrug it off…mainly because what it’s saying is not something you really want to hear.  You say to yourself, “No, I didn’t just hear that.”

That’s when the birds quit singing.  All is quiet and there is unrest in your soul.  And its not from a foggy brain, bills piling up or a busy day.  You still pray.  You’ve got a heavy burden on your heart and you really need to hear from the Lord.  But is He listening?  Where did He go?

Then one morning, as you’re reading your Bible (in Jeremiah, no less!), the Lord, again, in His still small, sweet voice, repeats something you’ve heard before.  Something He’s been trying to tell you for the past few weeks.  And you had shrugged it off over and over again, not wanting to believe He was asking this of you.  But because He delights in mercy (Micah 7:18,19), He comes and asks you again to set something aside for Him.

“But, Lord, there’s nothing wrong with this!” you say, as you hug it close to you.  “No, there’s nothing wrong with it…but I still want you to set it aside.  Are you willing to do it for Me?”  the Lord asks.

Still you hesitate…

Days go by and the heavens seem like brass.

(How thankful I am that the Lord is so long suffering.  What a blessing that He continues to speak…and it’s even more blessed when we finally listen!)

This morning, my Bible reading was in Jeremiah 42.  The account is about some men that came to Jeremiah, seeking direction from God, or so it seemed.  They asked Jeremiah, “…Pray for us unto the LORD thy God…that the LORD thy God may shew us the way wherein we may walk, and the thing that we may do.”

Wow!  What a request!  If I had been standing off to the side and heard them talking to Jeremiah, I would have been impressed.  Really impressed!

But as we continued reading chapter 42 and on to chapter 43, we see that they really didn’t want to know what the LORD God said.  Jeremiah 43:2 says they were “proud men.”  They were wanting to look good, and perhaps wanted the man of God to tell them what they had already determined in their hearts to do.  I picture them standing before Jeremiah with their fingers in their ears saying, “Watermelon, watermelon, watermelon” over and over again.  They really didn’t want to know what the Lord had to say.  They already had their minds made up and they weren’t about to change the direction they were planning on going.

Their birds quit singing.

I wonder if they even noticed.

Maybe not.  They probably still had their fingers in their ears, repeating “watermelon, watermelon.”

Could they even hear the Lord’s still small voice anymore?

How foolish we are…how foolish I am, not obeying the Lord’s prompting the first time.  The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.  Yes, that’s true, but it’s not meant to be an excuse for us to disobey the Lord.  It should make us lean harder on the Lord!  Romans 8 is a great chapter that talks about the difference of walking after the Spirit or walking after the flesh.  When we walk after the flesh and not after the Spirit, there is condemnation (vs. 1).  To be carnally minded is death…our birds quit singing.  But to be spiritually minded is life and peace…the birds start singing again!  Oh what a sweet sound!

On the top of my prayer list I have this question written, “Am I clean?” with an arrow pointing to two verses written on the opposite page:

Psalm 139:23,24 

Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me and know my thoughts:

And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Obviously I still struggle with things and don’t always listen to God’s voice the first time.  But it is my prayer and hearts desire to be clean!  And I do want God to deal with me, to speak to me and point things out to me that just don’t belong in my life.

Are you clean?  Do you ask the Lord to search you and know your heart?  A man of God once said he knew of a lady that after she got saved, she grew by leaps and bounds.  When he asked her what her “secret” was, she said, “I mind the checks.”  She had her fingers out of her ears and she was always mindful of God’s still small voice; and when He said something to her, she was listening and she promptly obeyed.

Do you mind “the checks?”

The “little” thing the Lord had been dealing with me about the past few weeks didn’t seem like a big deal to me.  But it was.  I kept pushing it out of my mind and telling myself that the Lord wouldn’t ask me to give up “that.”  It wasn’t sinful in and of itself, but because it was causing me to disobey the Lord it was indeed sin!

Is the Lord dealing with you about something?  Is it something that really isn’t “bad” but its keeping the birds from singing in your heart?  Ask yourself this question, “Is it really worth it?!”

Nothing is worth keeping us from having the Lord like we should.  Absolutely nothing!

Think about it – how would we feel if we had to stand before God this very minute, clinging onto that one thing He is asking us to give up.  In that light, that “thing” seems ridiculous, doesn’t it?  We should gladly drop it like a hot potato and turn wholly to our Lord and Saviour, Who gave up so much to come to earth and die for our sins.  Nothing should ever take the place of unhindered fellowship with our Lord.  Nothing.

{Oh, believe me…I need to hear all this more than anyone!  And I think I’ll have to come back here and reread this…ummmm…about once a day probably!!}

Oh the joy of looking up to the Lord and saying, “Ok, Lord…here, You can have it.  I give it up for You” and the song returns to your heart and the birds start singing their little hearts out again!

Thank you, Lord, for delighting in mercy.  Oh hallelujah, what a Saviour!!