The Lonely Jungle Babbler

Every day it comes, and pecks at the glass panel of the window of my study. It is a Jungle Babbler, a very common bird in the Indian subcontinent. It dances flying up and down and fluttering its wings. Sometimes, three or four times a day it repeats this ritual. I thought it is trying to get into my room or fly through as it can see the other side. But why does it keep coming, can't it make out after three or four attempts that it can't fly through? 

I told my Neighbor, whom I consider an expert on birds, about this winged visitor. She explained that the babbler is pecking at its own reflection, thinking that it is another bird. I thought of verifying her suggestion. The following day I kept the window half open, drawing one panel fully open. The babbler came as usual. Perched on the window, looked into my room through the open panel but did not enter the room or peck. But it moved to the side of the window where there is glass and started pecking on the glass and dancing. So, I my Neighbor is right, it was pecking at its own reflection, thinking it is another bird. 

The Jungle Babblers are found in flocks of seven; that is why they are called "Sath Bhai" in Hindi, or "seven sisters" in English. But this Babbler moves around alone, not in a flock. Maybe it is an outcast. It may be searching for a friend or a flock to belong to. It comes many times a day, hoping to lure its image to join his company. Poor lonely Babbler. 

Loneliness is a terrible thing, to be alone, having no one to belong to. God pitied the man he created and said to himself that, "it is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18). So, God made a female companion for the first man. The institution of marriage is seen as God's remedy for loneliness. But not all humans get married, there are lots of singles, many widows and widowers as well. Loneliness prevails. 

Human beings are social. God intended that they live in the company of each other. Loneliness creates distress and meaninglessness. Like the lonely Jungle Babbler, we are looking for someone to belong to as we live in an increasingly individualist world. All that many of us can see is only our image and nobody else. That sinks us further into loneliness and depression. 

One way of beating loneliness is to experience the presence of God in our lives. The indwelling Holy Spirit enables us to experience the presence of God. Jesus promised us the Holy Spirit who will be with us "forever." Through his Spirit, Christ is present with us as he promised that he is with us till the end of the world. A person who holds on to the promises of God could be alone, but not lonely. 

A God-filled lives lead to hearts filled with genuine joy

'By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life' (Psalm 42:8, ESV).

Living fully immersed in the presence of God is the greatest of all experiences. The psalmist says that the whole day he experienced the love of God. Quiet hours of the night is his time to respond to the love that God has showered upon him in songs of prayer.

His songs are prayers to God whom he calls 'the God of his life.' The expression 'God of my life' means, the God to whom I owe my life. God is the master of my life, who directs it every day by his steadfast love.

Most of us who have to slog eight to twelve hours a day doesn't have much time to experience God. We hop from one task to another without any time to think about God who is the owner of our lives. Though each moment is filled with his acts of love towards us, we seldom recognize that.

The Psalmist is different in his attitude. In every task and in every achievement he could see the loving hands of his God. She could see the love of God when every sheet of paper went through the printer without getting stuck. Even when one got stuck, he is so light-hearted that he stops to thank God for the distraction and the challenge of clearing the jam. Your daily routine may not involve getting printouts, but you can extend this illustration to apply to your specific situations. A loving God fills our lives, all that we need to do is to recognize him in the moment of our lives.

Such people, who experience God in their day's work, retire for night with songs of prayer to God--certainly prayers of thanksgiving. They don't return home with bagful of worries and anxieties to be carried to the next day. 

A God-filled lives lead to hearts filled with genuine joy.

Photo courtesy-- Artem Beliaikin

The 'God-deficiency' of our days

'God is closer to me than I am to myself,' said Meister Eckhart (1260-1328), the German mystic and theologian of the bygone days. He went on to say that God is close to the wood but the wood doesn't realize that. That's true. God is closer to us but we don't realize the fact of God's nearness to us.
This insensitivity to God's nearness is caused by those things that have exiled God from our consciousness. It could also be that that many of our worldly concerns, cares and the like has created a wedge between us and our God and we let that gap grow as time went by, thus distancing us from our God.
We have many things that can take the place of God in our life. There are many rivals to God and we have consciously or unconsciously give these rivals to God the place of God in our lives. These are things that engage each moment of our lives. Our busy life, life's priorities, the things that demand our attention, those things that we adore have engaged our minds so much that we don't have time to realise the presence of God around us. These make us so insensitive like wood to the presence of God.
We then become like chidren who left their parents hands and were finally were lost in the crowd. Some search frantically for their parents to be united with them, some don't even realize that they are lost. This is what has happened to most of us. We have deliberately travelled too far from our Father who want to be closer to us.
One reason for wandering away from the Father is our own false self-confidence. We are made to believe that we are independent and we can do things without Him. As children grow and are more and more used to their world, they develop a sense of independence. That make them to dare to venture out themselves. This independence resulting from the false self-confidence is what makes us less and less aware of the presence of God. We are certainly less aware of what we don't make use of at all.
Jośe A. Pagola a Spanish bible commentator thinks that the problem of the modern world is not atheism but a 'God-deficiency' that we experience. We may not deny the existence of God but we don't acknowledge or experience God as much as we ought to. God is there, but we feel a deficiency of him in our lives.
This God-deficiency in our lives is the reason for all the ills of the modern day. Our world has turned more violent than before, because we in short supply of the God of love. We are merciless to women, children, the unborn, the poor etc, because we are deficient of the God of mercy.
God created the world centered around him, beautiful. The Bible encourages us to live our lives centred around him. God in the Old Testament had his presence in the midst of his people in the Tabernacle. He led his people through the wilderness. Jesus invited us to abide in him and promised his presence in our midst. He is ready to dine with anyone who opens the door of his heart for him. However, our insensitiveness, our God-deficiency and the lack of the God-centredness of our lives has thrown us off balance. There is a great need to return to God.
The devotional masters always tried to 'centre' themselves before they prayed, studied their scripture or even before they wrote. Everything has to be activities centred on God and proceed from the great awareness of him around and in us. This is why learning to centre our lives on God, whenever we feel that we are away from him is important.
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