Jacob Glassner

Several years back while walking near the beach, I ran into a swarm of hungry seagulls and crows. I know swarm isn’t the proper term for a gathering of crows or seagulls, but this assembly was nothing like a flock or a murder. They swooped and squawked, and having seen Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” a couple of times, I cringed as I approached them, hoping not to get pecked in the head. I thought someone must have dropped a whole bag of popcorn in the middle of the street, but the birds were fighting over something far more precious to them—vomit.

The prized piece of vomit? A chunk of hot dog. As one bird appeared to be the victor and would try to fly off with the prize, another bird would swipe the hot dog from his beak with a loud squawk.

I can imagine a child sitting in the backseat of his mother’s car, rolling down the window and depositing the hot  dog in the street in what can only be described as a drive-by puking. The old school lunchroom adage goes: “It tastes better going down than coming back up.” For birds, it must taste pretty good going back down again.

After passing the melee unscathed, I realized the birds weren’t acting gross. Birds are raised on vomit. When I was a kid, my mother fed me green beans and potatoes to make me grow big and strong, and I complained. A mother bird feeds her babies a steady diet of regurgitated worms to ensure they will be the fittest. I can almost hear their complaints.

Baby bird: “Mom, what are we having for dinner?”

Momma bird: “Vomit.”

Baby bird: “Vomit again? But we had vomit for breakfast and lunch!”

Momma bird: “Just eat your vomit. It’s good for you.”

Nowadays, I love my mother’s cooking, and maybe birds are the same. To them, the vomit spewed all over the street wasn’t disgusting; it was a chance to get a home cooked meal. And who could blame them for fighting over such a treat?

In Matthew 6:25-27, Jesus says, “‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?’”

So that wasn’t just an ordinary pile of puke. It was an example of God providing lunch for some birds.

And in the same way, He provides for each of us. Do you ever get caught up worrying about how you’re going to provide for your family when your paycheck doesn’t seem to stretch as far as it used to? Or maybe you lost your job? Or maybe you have a stack of unpaid medical bills on your kitchen counter? Give it to God. He will provide.

Sometimes His provision is clearly evident, but other times, we might have to judge whether or not God is at work. His provision might look like a pile of vomit at first glance, while something that’s not from Him might look like a big delicious slice of chocolate cake. Pray for wisdom in all your decisions.

And as Jesus told us all to do, consider the sparrows: “‘Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows’” (Matthew 10:29-31).