The Right Environment

If we want to attract birds to our garden, we must make sure we create a friendly environment for them.  So we plant a garden with native trees, hang feeders and place bird baths to encourage them.  By maintaining this environment, one by one, birds will come and soon we will be visited daily by a variety of birds.

 

 

We may wonder why so few people come into our lives.  Maybe it is because we don’t have the right ‘environment of soul’.  Wherever Christ went, people gathered around him.  They were attracted to his inner strength, his compassion, honesty and integrity.  We should be imitators of Christ – His characteristics attract people seeking God’s grace.
When we stop being judgmental and develop a Christ-like environment in our soul, it won’t be long before the birds (people seeking grace) begin to visit.  When we have developed a truly graceful attitude, God will bring people into our lives to be refreshed.
However, when we develop this ‘Christ-like grace’ we will soon learn a truth: as a refreshing birdbath and feeder attracts desirable birds, it equally attracts less desirable birds like crows and ravens. Likewise, a graceful soul attracts desirable people but equally frustrating and annoying people.
We will be tempted to scare-off those undesirables only wanting the desirables to make themselves at home. In this way we can subtly become little Pharisees thinking it is good to be graceful but not if it attracts undesirables like ‘tax collectors, adulterers or gentiles’.
Getting grace right is a balancing act. We don’t want to be selective with our grace, withholding it from the unappealing people that are just as hungry for it as the appealing; nor do we want to encourage the ravens to a degree where all the other birds are frightened off.  How do we solve this dilemma, God gives us both grace and wisdom to handle all circumstances if we seek it. (Matthew 5:43-48)