For the last three years, a pair of robins has built a nest on top of the light 
next to our front door. Right now, they are raising their second batch of babies for the year.
The male and female robins take turns watching the nest and searching for food to feed the little ones. Any time someone uses the front door, one or both of the adults scold us.
How like the robins we are.
We provide for our children. Human parents, like the robins, build a home, find food, and bring it home to their children.
We want to protect our young. As I write this (on Father’s Day), many families are celebrating Dad, or remembering those dads who are no longer with them. But many fathers, such as those who lost sons or daughters in the recent mass shooting in Orlando, are grieving, and no doubt regretting their inability to protect their children from harm.
We don’t like waiting. If I am outside working with the plants in front of the house, Mother Robin or Daddy Robin will sit several feet away. Sometimes, one adult will be on the side of the yard and one will wait in the driveway until I leave. If there’s no worm in their beaks, they chirp at me continually, impatient for me to complete our chore and leave them alone. Don’t we do the same thing at times? God may be tending the garden of our lives, watering our soul, or pulling out weeds–all of which are intended to improve us. But instead of being grateful for His work, we complain. We might want Him to hurry up and “finish,” or to simply leave us alone.
But God reminds us, “I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine” (Psalm 50:11, ESV). And Jesus said, “Consider the ravens [or robins]: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!“
As God’s children, we can be confident in His care of us. And although we do our best to take care of our children while they are young, we are limited in what we can do as they leave the nest. But we can trust them to God’s care, because He cares even more than we do. And His plans for them are always good, even if it doesn’t seem good to us.
