Photo and Commentary ©2023 by Maylan Schurch
Friday, December 8, 2023
Back in early October I parked near a cement-block garbage enclosure which was located in a parking lot near several fast-food restaurants. In a valiant effort to keep the scavenger-birds like seagulls or crows from spotting up this structure, someone had attached these wire spikes to prevent the birds from landing there.
But some kind hand – perhaps belonging to an employee at Jimmy John’s itself – had skewered a sub sandwich bun on a line of spikes, in hopes that maybe the birds could land on the bun itself and peck out a bit of nourishment.
I gazed at this scene with two minds. As a former farm kid, I was thoroughly schooled in the idea that humanity should have dominion over the animals. We didn’t allow our livestock to roam for miles across the prairie—we put up strong fences. We put up chicken wire to keep rabbits out of our garden.
But my other mind remembers Proverbs 12:10 NKJV: “A righteous man regards the life of his animal . . . .” Every day Shelley and I walk a trail near our home, we pause near the backyard fence belonging to a woman who has had that yard declared a wildlife sanctuary. And from the birds and squirrels we see, some with nuts in their mouths courtesy of the feeders she keeps full, we know that they appreciate the generosity.
God created us to be kind. And while humans are obviously of more value than birds or animals, God takes care of them too. Here are three Bible verses (with a sub-link) which gives God’s opinion on this warmhearted trait.