Doves

Some of you know that my wife, Dorcas, and I live in Lima, Peru, where we are pastors and missionaries. One of the many neat things about living in Lima is that everyday I get to see a flock of white doves outside my window. The snow-white doves peck silently at the green grass underneath them, hunting around for some quick sustenance, and then they frequently let out a contented "coo" to show their satisfaction with their meal.

Everytime I see the doves outside my window, I think of the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:26, when He says, "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?"

Are you?

Everytime I see the doves outside my window, God says to me, "Look at the doves in the grass. I take care of them, and I'll take care of you. Stop worrying."

Oswald Chambers, in his marvelous book, "My Utmost for His Highest", says that worrying is really "infidelity" to God. He's right. When we worry, we're cheating on God, spiritually, because we're trusting (or fretting over) our own means of trying to do something, instead of His. Worry is infidelity to God.

God also says to me, "The doves don't worry, and neither should you. I will provide what you need."

Sometimes God's loudest messages to me come in the form of a silent flock of contented white doves, right outside my window.