Lessons from nature
How much courage do you have in the face of your enemy? This morning I saw an example of a mother’s boldness when confronting an intruder.
Hanging off my patio is a wren house. About the size of a large acorn squash, with an opening the size of a golf ball in it, it sways on a five foot high rod outside my kitchen window.
For the last few weeks I have had the privilege of watching a male and female wren build their family a nest in this petite shelter. Yesterday, I heard the chirping of baby birds. Occasionally the parent flittered over to the nest and hopped inside, to reappear a minute later and fly off.
This morning in the early morning light I watched as the wren brought bits of food to her babies, jumped into their home to feed them, and then fly off for another run to the “grocery store.”
At one moment when the mother was gone, a squirrel, who had been watching from a large tree ten feet away, scuttled across the grass and stood with hungry (?) eyes below the wren’s house, thinking.
Within seconds the wren swooped in, landed on the top of the globe and shouted — chittering at the squirrel. The furry critter turned and ran back to the large tree and up its trunk, jumping along one branch. The wren followed him, perched further out on that branch. Petite bird and chunky squirrel had a face off.
The wren, not much bigger than my thumb, glared at the squirrel, and yiked and yiked in her high pitched squeak. The squirrel held his spot, his face about two feet away from the wren. Then he turned tail and ran down the tree. The mother wren dive bombed him, and flew inches over his head. He high tailed it for about ten feet to some ground shelter. Only then the mother flew back to her nest, and hopped inside.
I loved the way Mother Wren used her maternal courage to protect her family. In my imagination, I heard her screeches meaning “You get out of here. This is my territory, my family, my purpose. In the authority vested in me by God Almighty I command you to leave now.” And then she flew over the enemy and bossed him all the way out of her territory.
We have the authority Jesus gave us to command the enemy to leave us. Let’s be as bold as that wren, to protect our love ones, and ourselves in the name of Jesus and under his blood.
Please, the next time you feel like you are battling something — a cold, a financial problem, a rebellious child, a pain in your neck — take authority and tell that enemy to get lost.
Jesus would want you to do that.
Luke 10:19 “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.”
In Christ,
