Safe

Wings

Do you ever have a moment where you feel tiny? A moment when you look at the vastness of space, the billions of people on earth, the centuries stacking up in history and you realise that you are a dot in comparison? And when we begin to think of the Creator of it all, how miniscule we are!  

Which makes this verse all the more amazing. Jesus looks at his people and says,

“How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings…” Luke 13. God the Almighty tenderly longs for us.

Last week I was walking along the river and this is what I saw. Tiny chicks nestling under strong wings. Wings which take the brunt of the weather, wings which guard against predators. A place of warmth and safety.

It is a picture of tender love. The God of the universe is the God whose tender mercy visited us in Jesus (Luke 1), whose wings take the brunt of all our sin, who was beaten for us, who is our safe place.

That word longing is a word that tells us that God’s love is not anaemic. It is fierce and passionate. God longs to gather us near – to him and to each other. Do you know that God longs for you?

But there is a question left for us to answer.  Jesus says, how long have I longed for this … but you were not willing. Oh, that stops me short in my tracks.

Because sometimes I run to other places for my safety, flimsy refuges of other people’s approval or my achievements, cardboard homes that collapse. Maybe I think it will be claustrophobic or constrained under God’s wings but his wings aren’t like the ones in my photo. His wings span the universe – there is space underneath them to sing and dance and grow. 

We are tiny but we are secure. We can take refuge and sing in the shadow of God’s wings.