In one of Jesus’ parables, he told His disciples about how God cares even when one sparrow falls to the ground. I found an interesting story about a Christian business owner and I thought I would share it with you. It is many years old, but the message is one that we need today.

I recently read an interesting testimony from a Christian man who owned a construction company. He was losing sleep worrying about some financial problems he faced in his company. One morning, after another night filled with worry, he opened his Bible and devotional guide. That morning he was reading from Matthew 6 where Jesus commanded his followers not to worry. Jesus said, “Consider the sparrows, they don’t plant or harvest, or store in barns, but your heavenly Father takes care of them–and you are much more valuable to him than the sparrows!” In his devotional guide, the message spoke about how God cares for the birds so much when a single sparrow falls dead to the earth, God is aware and God cares. The verse at the end was I Peter 5:7 which says, “Cast your cares upon him, for He cares for you.”

A few days earlier on the job site, they had been removing trees and the owner had noticed one of the trees had a bird nest with baby birds in it. He marked the tree and left word not to cut it down. But on this day, he realized the tree would have to come down because they couldn’t delay the project any longer.

The owner used a bucket truck to lift him up to the bird’s nest. When he looked in, the birds were gone–they had learned to fly. Since he was up there anyway, he removed the nest. You know birds use all kinds of scraps to make a nest. As he examined the nest, he discovered the birds had used straw, twigs, and even little strips of paper to make the nest. He removed one sliver of paper and what he read almost caused him to fall out to the bucket. Written on the fragment were these words, “God cares for you.” He realized God was using that bird nest to reinforce his message. Today, the man’s business is doing well, and he prays more and worries less–and he kept that bird’s nest in his office!

See, God can use a bird to bring a message of hope when you are under stress and worried. Now, He may not use  a bird in your circumstances, but if you notice something that may be out of place a message from God just might be in it. God can use us in many ways too, if we will listen and obey Him when we are told what to do.

Many people are suffering today because of cancer, and because of grief due to the loss of a loved one. They may not be suffering in the way that those which have no hope of Heaven do though, because if you know God and have accepted His love for you through His Son, then your future, your eternity is sealed in Jesus’ blood. You are a child of God by adoption because of the sacrifice that Jesus made to pay for all of our sins.

The debts are paid and have been paid for a long time, but many people reject the One who paid their debt for them. They reject the sacrifice and all that is available to them because of it, Just because of the identity of the One Who made the sacrifice and because they have a different idea about salvation.

Friends, the message contained in the Bible is one of hope and peace, whether mankind has used it in the past to do many wrong things, horrible things is not the issue. Mankind can and does use many holy words and scriptures to twist them into whatever he desires to do with them, just as Satan uses scripture that was written for our benefit and he twists it so that it means something totally different.

We, as a species, are sinful and we are that way from the beginning. Children tell lies even when they don’t know what a lie is. If they can do this, what makes you think that we, as adults, are any better? Your life and the people that are or will be affected by you, for good or bad, are important to God. No other person on the planet is like you or me, we are each unique and different. God made us that way so that He can use us each in ways that nobody else can accomplish. He wants us to accomplish things for us and for Him that only we can do. It is imperative that we realize this and decide to give our hearts and our lives to Him, because the alternative is horrible.