A Humble Birdfeeder

Happy Monday to our CFC Family;

Almost twenty years ago, Lenise and I came across a small, humble bird feeder in front of a very modest, simple house. We were told by friends of an estate sale at this home where the owner had recently passed away. By the time we arrived, nearly everything inside had already been taken—shelves empty, walls bare, and nothing remained that seemed worth anyone’s attention that day.

We were just about to get back into our car when Lenise noticed, outside in the yard, a sad-looking little bird feeder nailed to an old stump. It looked hastily made and slapped together many years earlier by someone I will never know. Weathered and unimpressive, and certainly not much to look at, it was easy to see why it had been overlooked by the many who had come through the house earlier that day. Feeling sad that it had been ignored, Lenise asked me to get it. I immediately thought, “Why bother?”  “I could easily build her a nicer one myself or just buy a new one at the store.” Still, she insisted, so I got back out of the car, pried it off the stump, and brought it home.

When we later moved to Manitoba, we set that little feeder on the railing just outside our kitchen window. And for nearly two decades it has stayed right there. Over the years we’ve repainted it, touched it up, and watched hundreds of birds—blue jays, sparrows, chickadees, finches, redpolls—and even a few determined squirrels visit it day after day.

What still amazes me is that this rough, forgotten feeder—passed over by everyone who had come through that house twenty years earlier—has now become a place of life and nourishment for many of our feathery friends. A simple gathering spot where God’s creatures know they can be fed.

There is a spiritual lesson here that speaks to the heart of God. Just as this ordinary, unimpressive feeder has become a place of blessing, so too did Jesus enter our world in the most ordinary way, born in a manger, in a humble setting, seemingly overlooked by the world around Him (Luke 2:7). So ordinary, in fact, that many missed the significance at first. Isaiah reminds us of this humility and ordinariness:

“He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain” (Isaiah 53:2-3).

Yet it was this seemingly small and insignificant life that brought salvation to the world. Scripture also reminds us that God often works through what the world considers weak or ordinary:

“But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27).

In the same way, each of us—ordinary, everyday people—can become vessels of God’s grace. We may feel unnoticed, unimpressive, or overlooked, yet God can use our lives, our actions, and our faithfulness to bring nourishment, comfort, and hope to others (Matthew 5:16). Just as the little feeder has quietly provided for countless birds, so God can use even the most ordinary of us to accomplish extraordinary things in His kingdom.

And so, I suppose we’ll just keep using that humble little feeder. It may be plain to the eye, yet for all those hungry birds over the years, it has been a steadfast place of nourishment. And as I watch them gather and feed, there is a quiet joy that fills my own heart.

And whether it’s tending God’s creatures or offering care to His children, there is a deep, satisfying grace in providing what is needed, however small or ordinary it may seem.  And that, my friend, is where the beauty in ordinary things truly lies.

Question: How might God be calling you, in the simplicity of everyday life, to offer nourishment and hope to those around you?

Have a great week and we’ll see you Sunday!

Pastor Dan