The Beauty Of The Australian Forest

(A devotion from my recently-published book 'Sunrise Sunset', Harper Collins / Harper SanFrancisco) Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Matthew 6:26. I have just been for a short walk into the Australian forest, a few kilometres from Wangaratta, in northeastern Victoria. It is a mild sunny March morning, and the birds entertained me - about ten different varieties. A family of ducks which had been eating grass by a creek took off with whirring wings and loud 'honks'. When I entered a copse of trees some magpies warned everyone I was coming, but after I'd sat still for about ten minutes the birds were back. A pair of white-eared honeyeaters whistled happily and did their little pirrouettes above the branches. A couple of tree-climbers hopped up a tree-trunk as easily as other birds hop along the ground. A scissors-grinder flew from tree to tree, making his unusual sound. A couple of scrub wrens twitted joyfully as they busied themselves inside the small trees. Swallows flew their erratic course looking for flying insects. Two varieties of rosellas fed in a large patch of grass... It was beautiful, and I received these visitors from my creator-God with gratitude. Each of them had a different message for me - of undiluted happiness, gambolling joy, delight in foraging, impish cheekiness (the scrub wrens); colours, sounds, movements, and, as they came closer, trust. O Lord, my Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth. Teach me how to magnify you more spontaneously, more trustingly, more colourfully, with more 'wonder, love and praise.' Amen.

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