So here's the question. How do you price, barcode, and pay for a minute's worth of looking at brother chaffinch?
Jesus said, Do not be anxious…Look at the birds." No, he wasn't a romantic dreamer – he was a carpenter, a teacher, a friend of the marginalised, and of the poor – those people for whom a cost of living crisis becomes a struggle to get through each day.
The feeding of the 5000 was one of the first community food banks. It happened because "he looked at the crowds and had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd."
Back to my friendly or at least unafraid chaffinch: "Your Heavenly Father feeds them…" Providence isn't always about a concatenation of circumstances no one could have thought of. Sometimes, perhaps most often, providence is when those who have more do the obvious thing out of compassion for others.
"Consider the birds…" If you can't feed 5,000, then maybe 5, or 1. I've no idea what the price of compassion is – except I think indifference is much more costly. Somewhere, in our own life orbit, there are folk who are struggling; somewhere in our neighbourhood there is a food bank or donation point; and in the providence of God, who looks after the birds, it may just be that someone will thank God that there are those for whom the cost of living is well worth paying on, for someone else. Or so it seems to me.
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