Ep 58: He’s Faithful to Fledglings

0:00 Well, good morning, I'm Daniel Dalp and this is for your Sunday Morning drive, the short podcast with the goal of providing your motivation, your drive, and your encouragement on the way to worship and recentering your mind on those spiritual things on hectic Sunday mornings. We are brought to you by the Ministry League network of podcasts. You can always check out the great resources and podcasts that they offer through ministryleague.com as well as their app. I hope you're having a great day today, and I appreciate you making us part of your weekly routine. If you have a moment, give us a share with a friend and leave us a rating and review wherever you listen. That'll really help us grow. All right, well, let's go ahead and get into our episode today. This is episode 58. He's faithful to fledglings.

0:42 Let's go to church. Are we there yet? This spring, a Robin has built a nest on the meter box on our front porch. And it's been fun to observe those little blue eggs hatch and the babies begin to grow, and grow surprisingly quickly, I might add. From hatchling to fledgling stage, it took only about two weeks. And in that two weeks, my family and I made constant trips to the nest just to check on their progress. And I mentioned that to a friend and and they asked if I was concerned that my proximity to the baby birds would cause the parents to abandon their young.

1:36 In short, no. You see, the idea of mother birds abandoning their young because of human interaction or consent is simply a myth. It's an old wives tale, likely perpetuated by concerned parents not wanting their kids to touch or interact with potentially sick or dangerous wildlife. And looking into this, I was actually surprised by how good Robins are as parents. While the hatchlings are growing, the mother will stay with the nest and the father will actually post up somewhere nearby, just keeping a watchful eye, something we actually observed in our front yard. But here's an interesting thing. Even when the young birds abandoned and in the nest, the parents still do not abandon their children. Even when the mother begins preparing for a new clutch of eggs, the father will often lead the fledglings to roost at night and occasionally provide them with food. You see, they might leave the safety of their father, but their father is always nearby watching. And that got me to thinking about our Heavenly Father and our relationship to Him as His children. First John chapter 3 verse one says, see how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God, and such we are.

2:47 For this reason the world does not know us because it did not know him. What a blessing indeed. However, as many of us know, there are times where we might walk away from God when we might abandoned the goodness and security and salvation that He offers. But our Father is incredible and what speaks to his character is seen in the way that even if his children walk away from him, he does not forsake them. Hebrews 13 verse 5 says, make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have. For he himself has said, I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you. He's always watching. He's always eager, Not eager for vengeance or punishment. Not the vengeful, angry God that so much of the world portrays as just sitting up in heaven and rejoicing when he catches one of his children in rebellion, but longingly, lovingly, and zealously hoping for the disobedient to return in repentance.

3:42 Just look at the example that we see in the parable of the prodigal son, which by the way, speaks so much to the father's character. Luke 1520 So he got up and came to his father, but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him and ran and embraced him and kissed him. In verse 24, the father says, for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again. He was lost and he has been found. And they began to celebrate. What an amazing heavenly Father. My encouragement to you to today is to both understand or to be reminded about how much God loves you and wants to call you his child. You see, even if you've flown the roost, he wants nothing more than to take you under his wing.

4:25 Well, those are my thoughts for your Sunday morning drive. Now it's time to hear yours and don't forget you can always share those thoughts and comments at for your Sunday morning dr.com. Our discussion questions today are are you living as a faithful child of God? In what ways do we truly show our appreciation for is faithfulness? What does it mean to us that we are children of God? And if we feel far away from God, who left?