The Unexpected Squirrel!

I finally got the bird feeder I always wanted, from our son Jonathan and his wife Danielle for Christmas.   A couple of days later I set it up where I can see it from our breakfast table, hanging from a pole in our backyard. Within a few days the birds began to come: finches, cardinals, sparrows, chickadees, a blue jay.  All kinds of birds began to gather around and eat at our (their) new feeder…until the squirrel showed up!

Like all squirrels, this squirrel can climb, jump, swing, and do whatever he must do to get to the birdseed.  For my part, I feel like I have a new challenge on my hands. So, I’ve been doing my on-line research, reading how I might protect my bird feeder from this new enemy of mine!  (Today, I might try cayenne pepper, which I’m told the squirrel doesn’t like, but which doesn’t affect the birds—they can’t taste spicy! Who knew?)

I’m sure that there are those who would say, I should have expected to have to deal with a squirrel once I put up a bird feeder.  I guess I just didn’t think about it. Or, maybe I didn’t want to believe it could happen to me and to my bird feeder.  Yet, it did. Unexpectedly, I find myself dealing with another problem in life, albeit a small one, this time in the form of a squirrel attacking my birdfeeder!

Before the squirrel!  

Of course, lots of unexpected things happen to us all the time. Some we ought to expect, but we don’t. Others we have no way of knowing will happen to us. In either case, stuff comes our way that we never thought would come into our lives.  Like the squirrel jumping and climbing onto my birdfeeder, the unexpected jumps out at us and disrupts our lives, often stealing from us our peace and sense of security.

In the midst of the unexpected turmoil of his life, the Psalmist wrote these words: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging…The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.” (Psalm 46:1-3, 7 – NIV)   

I’m glad, for God’s constant protection, provision and work in my life. In the midst of the unexpected disruptions of life, he remains a constant—a fortress, a refuge, a God upon whom I can always depend.  I want to encourage you to trust him in the midst of the unexpected things that may (will) happen in your life as well!

Have a great day! Stay warm!

Pastor Tim Harris