With the Song Still In Them

“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” Henry David Thoreau

I am fascinated by the birds that breed and feed in my wooded backyard. My white cat, Sushi, stalks them, often poised directly below their feeder pole but they eat and sing undeterred by the threat that lurks beneath them. They have songs and wings.

Our Creator God has a voracious appetite for variety. My common backyard birds come in a vast array of colors, sizes and designs when really He could have chosen to create just one singular breed and we would never have known the difference.

In His wisdom, He muted the colors of the females, a camouflage from predators while the males fan and preen and display their magnificence to both win their mates and to protect them. Yet, he blessed many of the females with brilliant flashes of color beneath their wings – for what purpose except for the joy of it and the flair of a Master’s brush?

Each bird, too, has its own language and call. Again, they could have all done fine with a common “caw” but instead there are tweets, twitters, warbles, cries and alarms individual to each breed and to each situation. Many listeners note that often the plainest, tiniest wren has been blessed with the boldest and sweetest song.

God’s passion for variety is revealed not only in these creatures but also in ourselves. We humans are alike and yet so different from each other when really one tone of skin or one color of eyes or one type of talent might have done. Instead, we each have our own coloring, our own distinctive markings, our own wings, our own song.

Made in the image of a Creator God, we are designed to create. Our creative urges are as varied as ourselves – driving some to music, some to visual arts, others to words, some to wood and others to movement. There are those who are driven to create order, new inventions, new relationships, healing techniques, teaching methods or more children. Some were designed to create hope in others and some to create lasting peace. The ways we express our creativity are as unique as our DNA and as necessary to a full and satisfying life.

All of us will die. Beneath the places we breed and feed lurks the ever present specter of death stalking our every move. But we have wings and songs. Will you go the grave with the song still in you? Will you live a life of quiet desperation? Or will you exercise the wings given you by the Master Designer? Will you find your voice and the song He imagined only you would sing? Will the world be blessed with what was formed in you before time and what was part of the plan before He spoke light into being?

Look out on the birds of spring and ask Him, “What song was I designed to sing? Let it take wing within me.”