•Saturday, April 04, 2009
(an excerpt from Elisabeth Elliot's book: Secure in the Everlasting Arms. )
"Amy Carmichael gives a beautiful illustration from nature of perfect peace. The sun bird, one of the tiniest of birds, a native to India, builds a pendant nest, hanging by four frail threads, generally from a spray of valaris. It is a delicate work of art, with its roof and tiny porch, which a splash of water or a child's touch might destroy. She tells how she saw a little sun bird building such a nest just before the monsoon season, and felt that for once bird wisdom had failed - for how could such a delicate structure, in such an exposed situation, whether the winds and torrential rains? The monsoon broke and from her window she watched the nest swaying with the branches in the wind. Then she perceived that the nest had been so placed that the leaves immediately above it formed little gutters which carried the water away from the nest. There sat the sun bird, with its tiny head resting on her little porch, and whenever a drop of water fell on her long curved beak, she sucked it in as if it were nectar. The storms raged furiously, but the sun bird sat, quiet and unafraid, hatching her tiny eggs.
We have a more substantial rest for head and heart than the sun bird's porch! We have the promises of God. They are enough, however terrifying the storm."
Beneath the cross of Jesus I fain would take my stand,
The shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land;
A home within the wilderness, a rest upon the way,
From the burning of noontide heat, and the burden of the day.
I take, O Cross, thy shadow for my abiding place.
I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of His face,
Content to let the world go by, to know no gain or loss,
My sinful self, my only shame; my glory all the Cross.
(Elizabeth Clephane)
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