“BEHOLD the fowls” — look attentively at them. Observe the lilies with no mere passing glance, for these, the common sights of nature, teach deep lessons to us concerning our heavenly Father’s care. We were watching one day some scores of seagulls screaming and striving over one morsel of food, as they rose from their rest on the waves in pursuit of one of their number, which had seized its prey. And with what disappointed cries did the unsuccessful competitors for that morsel return to their waves, yet before the day was spent the birds had received their sufficiency, and each one sped to its home on the rocks satisfied, for “your heavenly Father feedeth them.”
A little seed-eating bird in a cage will go to its food store every few minutes through the day, and to keep it without food for but three or four hours would be its death. What a lesson does this fact afford of our heavenly Father’s care, as we contemplate the thousands of little songsters which people the field, the hedgerow, and the wood. They have neither storehouse nor barn— no resource but the open country and their own incessant search after the food provided for them. Our Father’s care does not imply indifference in the children, but it does demand hourly trust and constant confidence in His kindness.
The lilies of Palestine are beautiful, but they are common flowers there, The Lord did not call attention to the lilies of the garden, but to the lilies of the field — flowers most beautiful, but which grow up in their beauty without toil or labor. Flowers, “the grass of the field,” but clothed more richly by the hand of God than was ever the greatest of earth’s kings — Solomon, in all his glory, by all the skill and wisdom of man. God, for His own pleasure, has made the flowers beautiful, and the Lord would teach us from the primrose and the buttercup to trust our Father in heaven.
How the anxious thought for the morrow robs the soul of the day’s rest in our Father’s care! One secret of a happy Christian life is to be without plans for the morrow. Tell God the trouble, and then leave it with Him to provide. The bright and busy bird fulfils its little daily task unmindful of the morrow. “How much more are ye better than the fowls?” Work on then, trusting in the unvarying love and care of our Father who is in heaven. Our great lesson for earth is confidence in our heavenly Father. This lesson is not learned once and for all in life, but it is a lesson to be learned afresh every hour of every day. When free from the burden of life’s care by casting all our care upon our Father in heaven, the soul is in a state to receive the deep realities of heavenly things.
Allowing the trustful spirit, then let every energy of the soul be given to the heavenly things. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness”— first, before all else. Ever make the concerns of eternity the first claim, and your Father who is in heaven will provide for the need of the passing hour. Do not earthly parents plan every good thing for their children, and expect them to trust? Also the parent looks to the child for purpose of heart as to the things the parent values most. It is as if a voice from heaven said to us, “Leave thy cares with God, and make God’s glory thy concern.”