Why God Made the BlueBird

I wondered why God made bright colored birds. The goal of most creatures is to blend in with their surroundings so foes won't find them. Yet consider the blue bird or the cardinal. They pop out of the trees with their beautiful bright plumage. I was on a run yesterday when a blue bird flew right in front of me. It struck me then how brilliant and noticeable he was. Granted, he is blue like the sky, but he is a brilliant blue, a color the sky might be in Heaven on steroids, but not the color of the sky here on Earth.

Bright colored birds in the jungle blend in with the bright colored profusion of plants there, but this is not the jungle, and cardinals and bluebirds stand out like tasty m&m's against the leafy background here. I know there are brightly colored butterflies that taste horrible. Predators learn to avoid them because of their nasty flavor. This works for the species, though the individual butterfly who was tasted is not so happy. But I have never heard cardinals or bluebirds taste any less savory than the drab crow. Beautiful bright colors attract mates...but ALL the bluebirds and cardinals have beautiful bright colors, thus the advantage seems watered down to me.

Could it be God made them beautiful just for me? Yesterday, when I saw the bluebird, the sheer unusualness of that striking blue made me smile. I was feeling uncharacteristically tired on my run, struggling to breathe after only a short uphill. I even had to stop and walk home, something I never do. I just didn't feel good. And I thought, "This is how it starts, soon I will be stopping after a shorter time of running, and then I will not go running at all anymore." That's when I saw the Bluebird, resplendent against the everyday color of the world, and I felt cheered.

When Moses looked upon God, the reflected glory of the vision was so bright that he had to wear a veil as the Glory slowly faded. Later we are reminded by the Apostle Paul that we get only the tiniest glimpse of Heaven while sojourning here on earth. Even those glimpses take our breath away, but the purpose of those brief snatches of glory is only to whet our appetite for the unsurpassable glory that will endure: the glory of standing in an eternal relationship with an eternal God for all eternity.

For now, the Bluebird with its impossibly beautiful blue wings makes me smile and yearn for more than just a fleeting glimpse. It soars upward, stretching its brilliant blue wings against a backdrop of heaven, and disappears.

2 Corinthians 3: 10,11,18
For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts! And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.


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