Feathers are not unfamiliar sights around our house. With four chickens, feathers are always a flyin. Birds’ feathers are like our hair and I can’t help but think that God knows the number of feathers on their backs – or like some of us, the lack of feathers…
You’re not going to believe this, but this here feather has been stuck in that same place in our yard for about five weeks. It’s become a talking point at our house. Each morning we get up go to the window and say “It’s still there.” As I’ve mentioned before my chicks molt at the oddest time of year, they lose all their feathers and get new feathers, and it’s usually in late fall, early winter. They’re nearly bald for anywhere from 8-16 weeks and that’s a really long time when it’s cold outside. Just as we’ve noted before God’s ways are not our ways, so molt they must.
What makes this odd is that this feather is completely out in the open, no protection or shelter, and the wind blows at our house all the time – gale force – well, maybe not quite gale force, but a steady 10 with a gust or two all of the time. We’d welcome a “Quiet down!” from the Lord every once in a while. Anyway, you get my drift.
As I was heading back from the barn the other day, I did a feather check and I marveled that it was still standing, it was holding steady, even in unsteady conditions. You see, a 10 mph breeze is nothing for the chickens, the cat, the dog, the horses, and certainly not for us, but for a feather that weighs .000289 ounces (yep), even a breath could waft it into the next county, yet it stands firm. It may sway in the breeze, but it always goes back to center position, reaching toward the Heavens. This feather never looses its balance. This feather is strongly embedded, tethered, anchored to the ground where it fell. No amount of weather has been able to push it over or away. It made me wonder if I’m that strongly tethered? Do I sway with the world? When a big gust comes along will you find me in the next county? Can I withstand all kinds of weather and not lose my balance? Does my anchor hold?
For example, there was God’s promise to Abraham. Since there was no one greater to swear by, God took an oath in his own name, saying:
“I will certainly bless you, and I will multiply your descendants beyond number.” Then Abraham waited patiently, and he received what God had promised. Now when people take an oath, they call on someone greater than themselves to hold them to it. And without any question that oath is binding. God also bound himself with an oath, so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind. So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary. Jesus has already gone in there for us. He has become our eternal High Priest in the order of Melchizedek. Hebrews 6:13-19
Hope, the anchor for our souls. Hope in the knowledge that God keeps His promises. In fact, He didn’t just promise, He also took an oath, in His own name. We have His promise and His oath!
If our anchor is tethered to the shifting sands of this world, it simply has no hope of holding.
Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ but not do what I say? I will show you what he is like who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them: He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid his foundation on the rock. When the flood came, the torrent crashed against that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.
But the one who hears My words and does not act on them is like a man who built his house on ground without a foundation. The torrent crashed against that house, and immediately it fell—and great was its destruction!”
Luke 6:46-49
In the trials of this life, the gale (or should I say Gail) force winds, we must be securely anchored to our Great High Priest. The One who constantly intercedes on our behalf, if we have placed our hope in Him.
Where are you tethered? What secures you? What type of foundation are you anchored in? The Rock or in the sand?