“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 more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” Matthew 6:26-27

Worry? Who, me? I’m not a worrier. At least not at this exact moment in time.

All right, I lied. I’m worrying as we speak. I’m pretty much a consummate worrier. Except that I don’t call it worrying. I call it being a thorough planner. I can probably do a better job than most at rationalizing my chronic worrying. I spent a year of my adult life as a Scout Platoon Leader in the Army. As Scout Platoon Leader, my job was to fly the lead aircraft for my Troop. In other words, on a two-hour flight, eight helicopters were depending on me to get them where they needed to go and to arrive at our destination within thirty seconds of our assigned time.

Can you see why I’m such a thorough planner? I’d study the map for hours before a mission, visualizing the route and picturing the terrain in my mind. I got good enough at my job, that I started flying lead for the entire Squadron. Now, instead of just eight helicopters relying on me, I had twenty-four.

Stressed yet?

I was. I remember sitting in the cockpit before each mission, a map balanced on one knee and a sheet of paper listing times and map coordinates Velcroed to the other, looking at two stopwatches while calculating distance, time and airspeed in my head. I used to pray that the mission would get canceled, or that the commander would pick someone else to fly lead. I worried constantly.

Sounds like fun, huh? So imagine how I felt when I listened to Andy this morning as he read the verse from Mathew where Jesus promises that if our heavenly father will take care of the birds of the air, the Ravens, that he’ll take care of us as well.

Seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it?

Now some of you really aren’t worriers. In fact some of you point to this verse and say, “See, I don’t need to do anything with my life because God will take care of me.” But I don’t think that’s what Jesus was saying. Have you ever watched birds? They’re busy from sunup to sundown, looking for worms, building their nests, doing whatever it is that birds do. I’ve never seen a bird that just sat in its nest and waited for God to drop some seeds in its mouth. Birds give one hundred percent each day of their lives and then go to sleep at night content in the knowledge that they’ve done all that they could do.

I think that our Christian life should mimic this attitude. If we’re honestly trying to discover what God has in store for us, we have to get out of our nests each day, and hit the ground running. We have to exhaust every avenue open to us, and then and only then, can we rest in the knowledge that our heavenly father will provide for us.

In his book, The Barbarian Way, Erwin McManus makes the following observation about Rhinos:

You see, Rhinos can run at thirty miles an hour…but Rhinos can only see thirty feet in front of them. You would think that they would be far too timid to pick up full steam, that their inability to see far enough ahead would paralyze them to immobility. But with that horn pointing the way, Rhinos run full steam ahead without apprehension. (McManus, Erwin Raphael. The Barbarian Way. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc. 2005, p. 137-38)

Erwin goes on to say that Rhinos exemplify what our walk with Christ should look like. That while chasing after God’s will, we can rarely see more than thirty feet ahead of us even though we’re still running at thirty miles an hour. Think I’m making this up? Check out Acts 16:6-10. This scripture tells the story of Paul, the author of most of the New Testament, and how he’s struggling to find out where God wants him to preach the gospel. Paul passes in or around six different regions before he finally realizes that God wants him to teach in Macedonia. In one point during his journey, verse seven says, “When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.”

Wow. And you thought you had obstacles in your life. Do you think Paul worried at all during this process? You see, while Rhinos run at thirty miles an hour, sometimes they hit trees and fall to the ground. And while the Ravens, or birds of the air, work all day at finding food, sometimes they still go to their nests at night hungry.

I’ve been trying to apply this concept to my own life over past year. I’m coming to the end of my current job at GE and have started the process of looking for a new one. I’m diligently seeking God’s will, but I’m also following up every job lead that I think I’d be good at. In the process of writing this blog I got an email that the job I really wanted had just been given to someone else.

Talk about hitting a tree.

But you see it really didn’t hurt at much as I thought that it would. In fact, it’s almost exciting. Like the Rhino, I’m chasing after God’s will at thirty miles an hour even though I can only see thirty feet in front of me. Like the Raven, I’m out of my nest and working from sunup to sundown even if I don’t always get that worm. But at the end of the day, I can rest at night knowing that I’ve done all that I can and that the remainder is in the hands of my God. The same God who tells me not to worry because he promises to feed me just like he does the birds of the air.

Keep running friends—I’d love to hear your stories.

Don