August 3, 2007
Squirrel Feeder
READ: Psalm 65
You crown the year with Your goodness, and Your paths drip with abundance. —Psalm 65:11
Some years ago I placed a squirrel feeder on a fir tree a few yards from our home. It’s a simple device—two boards and a nail on which to impale a corncob. Each morning a squirrel comes to enjoy that day’s meal. She’s a pretty thing—black with a round, gray tummy.
I sit on our back porch in the morning and watch her eat. She plucks each kernel from the cob, holds it in her paws, turns it around and eats the heart out of the kernel. At the end of the day no kernels remain, only a neat little pile of leftovers under the tree.
Despite my care for her, the creature is afraid of me. When I approach, she runs away, taking refuge in her tree and chattering at me when I get too close. She doesn’t know that I provide for her.
Some people are like that with God. They run from Him in fear. They don’t know that He loves them and richly provides them with everything for their enjoyment (Ps. 65:11).
Henry Scougal, a 17th-century Scottish minister, wrote, “Nothing is more powerful to engage our affection than to find that we are [loved by] One who is altogether lovely . . . . How must this astonish and delight us; how must it overcome our [fear] and melt our hearts.” God’s love is the perfect love that “casts out fear” (1 John 4:18).
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be. —Matheson
