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? Matthew 6:26
“Let no one bewail his poverty; let no one who possesses little at home despair of his life, when he looks at the inventiveness of the swallow. When building her nest, she carries the dry twigs in her beak, and not being able to raise the mud in her claws, she moistens the tips of her wings with water, then, rolling in the very fine dust, she thus contrives to secure the mud. After gradually fastening the twigs of wood to each other with mud as with some glue, she raises her young in the nest. If anyone stabs the eyes of these young, she possesses the nature remedy, through which she restores to soundness the sight of her children. Let this warn you not to turn the evil-doing because of poverty, nor in the harshest suffering to cast aside all hope and remain idle and inactive, but to flee to God; for if He bestows such things upon the swallow, how much more will He give to those who call upon Him with their whole heart?”
Basil of Caesarea (330-379) in Homily 8 on “Creation of Winged Creatures and Those Living in the Waters” in Exegetic Homilies, The Fathers of the Church, Volume 46 (CUAP, 2010) 126-127.
We are living in hard inflationary times. Many feel they have nothing to give. If that’s you, I want to encourage you to look at the birds. Basil teaches us much today from the swallow. Notice how the mother gives what she has for her young.
And I love how he echoes the exhortation of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Birds have no barns or bank accounts and limited capacity but God cares for them. And our Lord tells us that we are more valuable than they are.
So if you are enduring the harshest suffering today. With Basil, I beckon you not to cast aside hope and remain idle and inactive. That’s the tendency of hard times. They immobilize us. I feel it too. Do what you can with what you have.
Let us together flee to God. Run to Him for help and hope. Today I am praising God for slow but sure progress toward our goal for GTP. Praying for 25 new givers by 30 June 2022. Click here to give today.
The grant we hope to get will help us grow from 6-12 staff over the next 2 years to increase our capacity to empower national workers to build trust and grow local giving in some of the poorest places on earth where people are really suffering.