Read Hebrews 10:23–24

As we move toward the close of this year, we must refocus our priorities. Here is an anchor passage for us as we end one year and begin another:

Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. (Hebrews 10:23–24)

By entering this poem, you may feel the temperature drop a degree or two. But even more, I hope it will stimulate you to reach beyond the bounds of your territory to serve others. It’s called “At the Winter Feeder,”¹ by John Leax, who has served for over three decades on the faculty at Houghton College:

His feather flame doused dull
by icy cold,
the cardinal hunched
into the rough, green feeder
but ate no seed.

Through binoculars I saw
festered and useless
his beak, broken
at the root.

Then two: one blazing, one gray,
rode the swirling weather
into my vision
and lighted at his side.

Unhurried, as if possessing
the patience of God,
they cracked sunflowers
and fed him
beak to wounded beak
choice meats.

Each morning and afternoon
the winter long,
that odd triumvirate,
that trinity of need,
returned and ate
their sacrament
of broken seed.

If birds had souls, I have no doubt that cardinal would, yield to the God of his friends. Attractive adjectives plus unselfish verbs equal faith in the Noun of truth. It’s an axiom that holds true at the winter bird feeder. Let’s make certain it holds true in our lives, too.

1. Used by permission of the author.

Devotional content taken from Good Morning, Lord...Can We Talk? by Charles R. Swindoll. Copyright © 2018. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a division of Tyndale House Ministries. All rights reserved.