Recently the church’s administrative assistant kindly suctioned a hummingbird feeder directly to my office window. It’s one of those bright red feeders that has four “flowers” to, in theory, provide for four birds at one time. What a kind gift for these birds - an endless supply of sugar water to inject carbs into the rapid heart-rate and wing-beat so necessary for survival. And what a treat for me to be able to watch these amazing living avions dart to and fro.
But then something struck me as peculiar. As I watched one of these creatures alight to flick their tongues into this succulent gift, another dropped from a nearby perch like a kamikaze pilot to knock him off the faux flower thereby denying him his meal. What a selfish beast! And it happened again and again and again as these winged wombats tussled over the right to the sugar water. To make matters worse, remember, there are four flower opportunities, not just one, yet they couldn’t seem to get along. There was abundance of gift but not the grace within their minuscule hearts to share.
James 1:14-20
14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.
16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures.
19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness that God requires.
So we learn a lesson about the human heart as well. God has given us more than enough (think twelve baskets of bread leftover from feeding the five thousand) yet our own sin carries us away into a selfish rebellion against the Gift-giver and our fellow man. When we should be the most esteemed creature of all God’s creatures demonstrating His own righteousness through merciful and grace demonstrating hearts (verse 18), we are the foulest of all beasts (we are the only creature that rebelled against God thus bringing the curse upon all other creatures). James 4:1-2 asks and then answers, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? 2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.”
The requirement of God is righteousness - the opposite of un-right-ness. We are un-right. That’s why we bicker against each other. If I am truly right about something and someone takes issue, the reason I enter into an argument is because my attitude is un-right. I have used something right against someone for the sake of being right! Who’s wrong now?
Only Christ is truly righteous. Therefore, I must find my identity in Him rather than in my need to be right on my own merit. I need to be reminded of this daily as people knock me off the flowers upon which I feed. I need to be reminded of this daily as I seek to knock others off the flowers God has given them. To know Him and to have my identity in Him is greater than any food, literal or figurative, that I think I must have to feed upon at any given moment for my sustenance. I’ve got to ask myself what I need so much that I am willing to boil with anger, steal with malice, covet with passion, guard with paranoia, and kill with my heart in order to get it. And then I must go to the One from whom is every good gift and every perfect gift . . . from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change and ask for forgiveness and for thankfulness of heart and for the power to change through faith in Jesus.
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