Seeing the robins reminded me a moment last summer behind Aroma coffee shop. As I sat at one of the outdoor tables reading, I noticed several small birds hopping around on the ground, getting surprisingly close to my chair. I've got the focus of a hyperactive 8 year old so soon I was just watching the birds.
Pretty soon, I realized that one of the birds was slightly larger. Then I noticed that even though all the birds were hopping around, the only one that was actually pecking on the ground was this one slightly larger bird. Finally I noticed that she was actually feeding the other birds. She was the mother bird and these were her nearly grown, almost ready to fly away, baby birds.
These baby birds looked like they were fully grown. It took me several minutes of watching to realize they weren't. They could fly - at least well enough to scoot off to the nearest bush if someone walked by. But the one thing they couldn't seem to do was feed themselves.
The birds just hopped around, following the mother bird, waiting for her to deposit dropped pieces of bagel into their open mouths. The mother bird was picking up the crumbs of food from the ground right in front of the baby birds. On one occasion, a baby bird dropped the morsel her mother put in her mouth. It fell right at her little feet. But the baby just sat there and looked at it, until the mother came over, picked up the crumb, and re-deposited it in the baby's mouth. Even though the food was right in front of them, the baby birds just sat and waited to be fed.
Then I had a startling realization. (really - I don't have "aha" moments like this often - but this one almost knocked me out of my chair)....
That's exactly how we approach discipleship in the church.
We more or less sit (in the pews perhaps) and wait for someone to deposit the truth in our mouths. Even though the Bibles are right there in front of us, we don't often open them. We just wait for it to be fed to us. And let me be clear, I'm implicating myself here. I've got this great big fancy Bible sitting here on my desk beside me, right now. And I'll open it a couple of times a week as I prepare a sermon. I rarely open it just for the sake of growing in my relationship with Jesus.
Here's a couple of hard questions:
How much responsibility do you take for your own spiritual growth?
What steps do you take personally (beyond going to a worship service) to grow as a disciple?
All that said, I know there are a bunch of folks in my church who take their journey of discipleship VERY seriously. They challenge and encourage me. And I am so grateful for them. Grateful for YOU! I think what I most want to say is that I apologize for the times I've simply been an enabler instead of challenging you to run on ahead.
I'm energized by the idea of being part of a community of people who are giving the term "Empty Nesters" a whole new meaning.
We're folks who aren't sitting in the nest anymore just waiting to be fed. We've moved out and are chasing after Jesus with as much energy and passion as we can!
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