Catching Glimpses of His Faithfulness

Last summer, my husband built a simple bird feeder and staked it in the ground in front of our living room window. Before our twins were born, I would curl up with my toddler in a chair and watch the birds flit back and forth from the roof to the feeder, and the smaller birds crowd on the ground to gather what was dropped. These days I often only peek out the windows with a baby on my hip to catch a glimpse of cardinals, finches, chickadees, and sparrows collecting seeds.

One day, my mother in law stopped me mid-sentence and pointed out the window. “Did you see that? It looked like a black bird, but it had a bright orange stripe on its back.” Of course I’d missed it while tending a baby, but it had lit on the powerline above our yard.

I squinted. I could barely see a touch of orange on its closed wings—which at the time I wasn’t sure if it was truly there or if my eyes were playing a trick. We watched and waited for it to fly again. When it took off, it revealed its concealed beauty. A bright orange back that looked like flames between its wings.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, watching it fly into the trees beyond our sight. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

An article on the internet told us it was a common red-winged blackbird. Somehow in all of our lives of being outside and watching bird feeders, neither of us had ever caught sight of one. Or we had and had passed it off as an ordinary blackbird.

I’ve learned that it’s easy to miss little details like that when I’m hustling around trying to keep babies content, put away dishes, throw beds together, fold laundry, and brush away dust. A plate gets put away that still has food stuck to it. A sock gets misplaced under the dryer. A surface continually gets overlooked. And beautiful red-backed birds get brushed aside as just another blackbird.

But not only the physical details of life get overlooked, but so does the spiritual. When I’m drowning in a season of suffering, my pain often floods my vision, and I miss the small moments where God is still faithful. I start wondering why God has abandoned me, what he meant when he declared to be near to my brokenness, and where his fatherly care was when I was searching for comfort. Suddenly all his promises and claims of character fall flat in front of me like cardboard cut-outs.

It’s not that God changed. It’s not that God has grown jaded and weak with age and his ears don’t hear as well as they used to. God is still the all-powerful and all-seeing God that heard his people crying out in Egypt and led them through the Red Sea as he held the waters back. He’s still the perfect Father who heard the cries of Hagar, who provided for the pagan Ruth and bitter Naomi, who came near to David in his terror and grief knowing what terrible sins he would one day commit. He’s the same God who sent his Son to fulfill the law and die on the cross to bring us to salvation. “Indeed, the Lord’s arm is not too weak to save, and his ear is not too deaf to hear,” (Isaiah 59:1 CSB).

He’s still the same God in that suffering, but often it’s my eyes—my faith—that have grown jaded and weak.

It’s not until I take the time to pause and reflect, to step back and take a birdseye look around my circumstances, that I finally catch glimpses of his faithfulness. The hymn that slowed my racing heart as it was sung by the young girl who helps care for my children as she rocked my baby to sleep. The physical proximity of family members and their abundant care for us. The small group from church that sent us meals. The text from a sister in Christ. The many prayers of those both near and far away. The family we just met who have offered their time to help care for my children so I don’t get burnt out. As Chad Bird wrote,

The needle in the Spirit’s compass that directs us to where God is always points south. Downward. We descend into his presence. Where the lowly are, there he is. Where the common duties of life are performed, he is at work. If you want to discover the presence of God, don’t leave your wife behind for a week of deep meditation in the Rocky Mountains. Go help her do the dishes. If you want to be where Jesus really is, there’s no need to kneel before the Grotto of the Nativity. Go change your child’s dirty diaper. (Chad Bird, Your God Is Too Glorious, p. 64).

It’s there. God’s faithfulness isn’t always seen in tidal waves and a booming voice from the storm, or huge services with hundreds pouring forward in conversion. Sometimes it’s seen in the widow gleaning the field for her and her mother-in-law. Sometimes it’s seen in the prayers of a friend. Sometimes it’s in the hymn whispered by the mother waiting for her child to fall asleep. Oftentimes, God’s faithfulness is seen in ordinary, mundane moments through everyday people. Let’s take the time to meditate, to pause, and reflect to see it so we can praise him.