Originally published Sunday, 29 November 2015.
I didn’t know my insecure feelings were so close to the surface when I looked out of my kitchen window the other day and saw the cardinals. The red birds were sitting on a spindly pasture branch and going about their business. They were working and picking at the seeds from the dried weed heads creating a rhythm.
Suddenly feelings of invisibility came to mind. Momma cardinals like to be hidden to protect their young while daddy cardinals are bright red, showy and secure in their roles, taking the lead in seed gathering. The feathered friends distract the enemy from the nest, each in their own way, creating rhythm.
Perhaps I was out of my rhythm. The problem with invisible feelings is that they often spiral leaving me isolated, rejected, and alienated. I needed a new rhythm or maybe I just needed to refocus on a rhythm that worked.
Then, through the winged action of my red feathered friends, Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal, God softly spoke some courage to my insecurities. It was then in my invisible time at the kitchen sink, I got honest before the Lord, and I admitted feeling stuck and that I had let doubt overcome my thinking.
“Don’t you see me God?” Then something happened. I realized that being visible wasn’t the point. I knew in my heart that God’s point was His leading and my learning to hide myself in Him.
God sees us all.
There are some invisible builders who have built great houses for God. Cathedrals are known for their architects and bishops. But their invisible rhythm, the vast majority of the labor, the masonry, the carpentry, stained glass windows and hand carved doors were all done by people who names history will never credit. Scan the history books for yourself and see, most of the work was done by someone who is listed as unknown. Many of these cathedrals took hundreds of years to complete. That’s more than my lifetime for sure. These cathedral workers devoted their whole life to something they would never see finished.
They would never see the grand unveiling of the fruits of their labor. They would never get to look upon what was accomplished but they did it anyway. That’s devotion and being dedicated to the end to something with a passion, as if their work was a spiritual act of worship.
I wiped the moisture from my eyes and looked for the cardinals. They flitted to another branch or back to their nest. They had became invisible in their rhythm of life. So, when I’m feeling alienated, isolated or insecure I take these verses to heart and remember my conversation with the Lord by way of the cardinals. When I remember that He sees me, my visibility doesn’t matter.
Romans 12: 1-2 (MSG) “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life— your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” Yes, Lord, I will take my every day and ordinary life and place it before you as an offering, the seen and unseen. It’s all yours!
2 Chronicles 16:9 (NIV) “For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.” God is our El Roi and He sees everything. All of it, He doesn’t miss a beat of our lives nor rhythms we are in.
Psalm 33:13-14 “From heaven the Lord looks down and sees all mankind; from his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth”. God sees us, and we are seen from the windows of Heaven. We are watched by God who cares about every single detail, life, and feeling. We are always visible to God.
How have you dealt with feelings of invisibility?
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