STEP ONE: BREATHE

Take a deep, cleansing breath. Allow the air to fill your lungs and expand your body. Exhale and empty yourself into the room. Repeat three times - once for the one who Created you, once for the Incarnate One who walks beside you, and once for the Spirit whose life fills your being.

STEP TWO: DWELL IN WORD

The Parable of the Bird Feeder:

With what can we compare the Kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it?

It is like a bird feeder that someone hangs on his or her backyard deck and fills with seeds. Before long, birds will come from hidden places to feed. Different types and sizes of birds will perch upon the feeder and eat. Back and forth, they will fly. Chickadees and robins. Sparrows and wrens. Songbirds of all kinds will gather.

As the bird feeder is filled with more seed, the avian feast shall continue throughout the year. With each bird that comes, the owner of that home is brought a sense of delight and joy.

This is what the homeowners will do, they will hang new feeders. These added feeders will hold various types of seeds to attract more varieties of birds. Cardinals and finches will now arrive. They will even hang a jar of nectar to welcome hummingbirds. With each species that comes to feed, the bird-loving homeowners’ joy increases exponentially.

A Question to Ponder:

How can you celebrate the diversity that God has placed into your day?

STEP THREE: PRAY

Gracious God,

the source of abundance and diversity, I thank you for your many blessings in my life. Feed me this day with an abiding sense of gratitude. Let me experience life as a precious gift. Give me a healthy sense of humility so that I back away from a sense of entitlement and privilege. Make me generous so that I share rather than hoard what you have given to me. Help me to put my life into proper balance so that I might relate to others with the same kind of love that you have showered upon me. In the process of my grateful living might I bear and bring delight and joy to others.

Through Jesus Christ, Amen.