Animals

Animals

What is the price of five sparrows? A couple of pennies? Yet God does not forget a single one of them. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to him than a whole flock of sparrows.

Luke 12:6-7

Sparrows are common birds. To the casual observer, it may seem that a sparrow is a sparrow is a sparrow. But when I looked up sparrow in North American Wildlife, I discovered seventeen different varieties, and there are probably more. Because I am a musician, I was particularly interested in the song sparrow, which has more than thirty subspecies. Their songs often begin with a few regularly spaced notes, followed by a trill, and end with a jumble of notes. Amazingly, no two song sparrows sing exactly the same tune!

Jesus taught that God cares about each sparrow. He also taught that each of us is worth much more than a sparrow to him. Too many times we judge our worth by what we believe others think of us. That kind of thinking gets us into trouble because our value then depends on how we look, what we achieve, or how well we perform. When we look to God for our worth, we receive from him a deep sense of belonging. It gives me great comfort to know that if God cares for even the most common of birds, just think how much he cares for me!

God,

Thank you that you have given worth to everything you created. Please help us never to forget how valuable we are to you, and also how valuable our children are to you. Amen.