Improving on God
5/21/08 Reflections We were noticing this morning how the female birds around here are drab-colored so they don’t stand out when on their nests, while the males are bright-colored to show off their quality, impressing the females with their good genes to pass along. I thought that if birds had human attributes they’d be strutting around in their fine plumage, striving to make themselves even finer-looking than God made them. We seem to do a lot of “improving on God” in today’s society – being awed by our accomplishments and forgetful of the Giver of Life. We have made the humble drabness, so necessary in God’s mind for our task, into something to be abhorred and changed. In our competition to override God’s provision, we’ve become negative towards each other and careless in the things that really matter. No wonder there’s a tendency to want to hide from the world by those who understand God’s creation clearly. We are so obviously headed for a fall with our self-congratulation and manipulation of God’s gifts. Improvement is a good thing – unlike the birds we are not meant to be content with mere survival. But the goodness we strive for needs to be the abundance God envisions for us, not the pandering to self-interest above all else that is the hallmark of our society.
