Today I learn something so wonderful! We watch the robins building a nest outside the kitchen window as the sky darkens all around them. With thunder in the distance and big drops already falling, my daughter wonders why the robins build now, on this morning, in this storm. After all, we watched them sit so lazily on that same branch yesterday with just a bit of a nest formed.
It’s like they stopped working until the storm came.
My daughter pulls out her computer to ask why a robin builds a nest in a storm. We find out that robins will wait for rain because they reinforce their nests with mud. They line the nest with mud. They need the rain for the mud.
What seems like less than ideal circumstances actually represents the very conditions that make the best nest.
Perhaps, I think, we need the rain because it’s allowing for the thing we need to fortify whatever we’re building.
I remember this as I move out into any situation that seems imperfect, fearful, and gloomy. The soaking rain of any despondent thing creates something I need. I gather the mud and pack the interior of my life with a strength only storms produce in me. It’s just what James 1:2-4 promises about trials in life that produce a persevering, unshakable faith–as steady as a nest enduring any storm.
And now I can say that when a trial comes, I’m simply building and strengthening my nest.