SITTING ON THE LINE

 Over the past couple of days we have had some unusually cool mornings, which I am sure have been confusing for the little sparrows in my neighborhood. Just this morning I saw a fairly big flock of them hanging out on the power line across the street from me. I'm accustomed to seeing starlings hanging out on telephone lines, especially when I worked out at Bergman School. Tyson foods has a feed mill less than a thousand feet away from the school and as you can imagine when the feed trucks leave out from the mill they will have feed fall off of their trucks onto the shoulders of the road. I know for a fact we had some of the fattest and happiest starlings in the world along the way to Bergman from Harrison.  

So, this morning I asked the Google AI why birds hang out in flocks on power lines.  The answer was pretty much what I expected except for a couple of new things I hadn't thought of. I'd already figured that it was a safe place for them to survey the world from, and Google confirmed that. From the power line, they can see predators coming from above and below.  Hanging out on the wires also gives them the ability to scout out their prey/food without obstructions like leaves or tree branches. One thing I didn't know was that they congregate to preen one another. (Is there a spiritual analogy in that?)  They also congregate to keep each other warm. Another thing that I had never thought about before was that the power lines retain residual heat from the electricity going through them. Immediately my mind went to the presence of God. We gather to feel the warmth of the presence of God. He is electric, warm, tender, and kind!  His presence allows us to see life from Heaven's view instead of from this natural view. When we gather together we experience a collective security, warmed by the invisible presence of God that we all cling to. 

The view from Heaven is a spiritual view of life where we are safe from the spiritual predators that would try to make us live in fear.  The scripture verse in Psalm 27:1 immediately comes to mind; "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" 

If we are seated with Christ in Heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6) we have nothing to fear in this life. Sitting on the line is my metaphor for sitting with Christ in Heavenly places. If we are seated with him, He puts us far above everything that would seek to destroy us. We don't have to fear Death, because death won't, and can't hold us. 

When we are sitting on the line, our paths and purposes are laid out far below us for us to walk in. He allows us to see His purposes so that we can have confidence in what we do. BUT, it's more than just being high and lifted up with Him, it is being united with one another that gives us even more strength.  If we don't forsake coming together, (Hebrews 10:25) we can preen one another, removing old dead practices (feathers, and parasites) that keep us from doing His well .  All of this happens while we are being warmed, and blessed by the Presence of God. 

Nuff said.