How Birds Reveal the Joy of God

I know every bird in the mountains

Psalm 50:11

“If we’d moved here just for the cardinals, I’d be content,” I told my husband, Scott, one morning not long after we moved to our new home in the mountains of western North Carolina.

In the months following our move from Seattle to Weaverville, we had discovered that one of our greatest joys was also one of the smallest: the birds of North Carolina.

We can’t get enough of them. We keep feeders at both ends of the house, purely for the pleasure of watching these lively little creatures come and go.

We have our favorites. There’s a surprising variety around here; our bird-watcher apps have logged dozens of species. Scott’s favorite is the brown thrasher, unassuming in appearance but astonishing in song. I’m partial to the cardinals (very fittingly the North Carolina state bird) for the way they ignite a winter landscape and for their bold, bright presence all year long.

But there’s also the Carolina chickadee, tufted titmouse, eastern towhee, American goldfinch, mourning dove — each delightful in its own way. And don’t even get me started on the wild turkeys. What a hoot!

Until we came to live here, I filed an interest in birds under “grandmothers and retired men with binoculars.” But after more than a few conversations with my contemporaries who’ve found themselves newly attentive in the same way, I’ve begun to suspect there’s something spiritually developmental going on here. 

Perhaps it takes a certain slowing of pace, a bit of hard-won perspective, to not only notice but to truly delight in God’s small, everyday wonders.

This attentiveness has also made the many references to birds in God’s Word feel newly vivid.

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 much more valuable than they?

Matthew 6:26

This beloved passage has become for me one of the most beautiful and comforting in Scripture. If God keeps track of even these tiny creatures, whose lives span only a handful of years, how much more does He see, know, and take care of me?

All of this makes me feel like I’ve stumbled upon an extravagant gift — freely given, quietly waiting, and there for me to receive all along.