Lessons from a Lost Bird
While staying at the coast earlier this month we got quite the surprise one morning when we opened our door. We were on the top floor, and as it was an older building without a lift, there were a number of flights of stairs up to our apartment. So, imagine our surprise (and some might say terror) to find a bird flying around in the stairwell. It was lost trying desperately to get out. It kept flying at the window, but of course, being so high up it was bolted shut. We tried to coax it down the stairwell with no success.
That bird was lost. And thinking that the window was the way out, it flew at it, over and over and over. Despite failing to find freedom through the window and hurting itself in the process, it just kept trying because it knew no other way.
The bird didn’t understand that if only it flew down the stairs, open skies and life was waiting for it. And I didn’t judge him for his inability to comprehend or take hold of that concept, I just felt sad for it. Sad because he could see no other way out. He just kept hurting himself by flying into the closed window.
We had planned to go to the beach for a swim and so decided to leave the bird and hope it would find its own way out. But when we returned hours later, it was still there. It seemed much weaker by this stage and less reluctant to even try the window. It was clear the bird was not going to find its way out through the closed window or down the stairwell, so we came up with a plan.
We’d brought hot chips home for lunch (as you do when you’re at the beach). Thinking that perhaps if we could just get the bird into our apartment, it would see the open sliding doors to the verandah and fly away, we lay a trail of hot chips from the stairwell into our apartment. It worked a treat! The bird flew in, picked up a chip, and flew straight out the doors and away to freedom.
Just like that bird in our stairwell was harassed and helpless, so too are people living without Jesus. Those who don’t know Jesus, search for life and happiness and fulfillment in ways apart from Him. And those ways often cause pain and hurt, to themselves and others. But until they hear the good news of Jesus and the Holy Spirit works in their hearts to receive the message, they will continue being lost. This ought to stir our hearts as it stirred Jesus’ heart when He looked out at the crowds who followed him.
‘When He saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.’ (Matthew 9:36, italics mine). What an amazing insight into the heart of Jesus for lost people. Jesus had compassion on them. He didn’t reprimand them for not knowing better. He didn’t scorn them for their unwise choices. He didn’t turn away from them in their messiness and their sin. Jesus had compassion on them because they were lost, like sheep without a shepherd… like a bird stuck in a stairwell.
What is our heart toward people who don’t know Jesus? Are our actions marked by love and kindness? Do we feel compassion for those who don’t yet know Christ; those who are blinded by darkness and deceived by the foolishness of this world, those who cannot see the light nor find the way. We are to follow Jesus’ example and come alongside them, listen well, care deeply and gently show and tell them about the true, full life that only Jesus offers (John 10:10). As Romans 10:14 teaches, ‘How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?’ As God’s children, let us grow in our love and compassion for people who don’t know Christ and do all we can to see others find life in Jesus.
