A Message from the Hummingbird Feeder

What is cute on hummingbirds, doesn’t look very good on people.

A friend of mine, Patti, posted on Facebook last week, that she had two hummingbird feeders outside her breakfast window. She said there were four hummingbirds all buzzing around one. None of them were stopping to eat the free nectar that she had so generously provided. Instead, they wanted to make sure none of the others got to eat. In fact, there was one who sat on the top of the feeder, making it his mission to chase all of the others away. One perfectly good feeder, sat close by, completely untouched.

She was amused by their antics and challenged me to find a message in their behavior. I thought about it for a few days. My parents keep several feeders on their porch and they have close to a flock at times. They are just as aggressive as Patti’s. There’s always plenty, yet they refuse to share.

Human children are not much different. One of the most used words in the vocabulary of mamas with toddlers is share. If I had a nickel for every time I told my own kids to share, I’d be a rich woman. Sharing is definitely not an inborn trait. It has to be laboriously and lovingly, (most of the time), taught.

Young children not only want to keep all of their toys for themselves; they also seem to instinctively want whatever the other child has. Their own possessions are rarely enough to keep them satisfied.

Good thing we all grow out of that, right?

On second thought, Black Friday sales look a lot like the hummingbird feeder in question. Another example also pops into mind. A few years back, when oil shipments were disrupted in our area, we had a minor gas shortage. Do you think people simply got what they needed, knowing it would all work out? Nope, they headed to the gas pumps to fill up their cars and as many gas cans as their cars would carry. The gas stations had to end up putting a limit on the gallons that could be purchased. The shortage didn’t last long, but for a short time, people acted kind of like those greedy hummingbirds.

Greed is at the root of all kinds of bad stuff. And at its core, it seems to me, is a basic distrust of God and an insistence on relying on ourselves and focusing on ourselves. I know; self-reliance is a good thing to a point. We are supposed to work hard and support ourselves and our families.

But, we are also supposed to trust that God will provide for us. When He rained down manna on the Israelites, He commanded that they get enough. They weren’t supposed to stockpile. He wanted them to trust that He would provide daily, and He did.

How much of our time and efforts are spent stockpiling things we don’t even need? How much stuff can we accumulate? How much stuff do we actually need? How much time and money do we waste collecting all of that unnecessary stuff? Could our time and money be put to better use? Where is our focus? Where should it be?

Perhaps we should all give those greedy little hummingbirds some thought. While their behavior is amusing on them; it doesn’t look very good on us. We could all probably share a little more and learn to appreciate what we have. I know I could. What about you?

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂