Like a Bird Freed from the Fowler’s Snare
By Nathan
“THERE’S A BIRD IN MY HOUSE!”
“What!?!”
“THERE’S A BIRD IN MY HOUSE!”
“Is that an observation, or a request for help?”
My friend Andy and I got up from our seats around the first bonfire of the year and started walking across the street to his neighbor’s house. Andy commented as we walked about the difference between when his wife says, “I’m cold. I need a jacket,” and when she says, “Would you please get me a jacket?”
A better house-trap.
Turns out, our friend Emily was shouting both an observation and a request for help. A little brown wren had found a comfortable home in the ornate wreath on her front door. When the door opened, it flew straight up… inside her home.
Andy and I walked around her house until we found the little birdie. It flew frantically from room to room looking for escape. The bird wanted to be outside very badly, but how could we convince it to fly out the front door? It seemed convinced that safety would be found by flying up.
We started by closing it in the living room and then turned off the lights in the rest of the house. I recalled that moths and bugs fly towards lights at night because they think it is the sun. Maybe the same thing would work with a bird. Worth a shot.
With the house pitch black, I walked into the living room with my phone’s flashlight burning. Sure enough, the bird stopped banging against the ceiling and came down towards the light. I walked backwards out through the foyer and stood outside the open door.
Emily cheered as the bird flew towards me out the door into the black night outside. My little bit of bird whispering worked!
A light shines in the darkness.
What a great image for the way the Lord lead me out of the fowler’s snare I found myself in 15 years ago! My final days in Los Angeles passed in increasing misery. My business failed, my fiancé left me, my mind melted down. Like the bird in the house, I kept chasing after false hopes to escape, only to slam into a wall or a ceiling.
The Lord, in His mercy, closed off all of the exits and shut off all the lights. It got really black for me. But then came the littlest spark of light. I heard His voice. And I started to follow the light. Slowly, surely, the light brought me out of darkness and into freedom.
I think sometimes the Lord has to close off our escape and expose all of our false hopes for the frauds they are before we are really free to follow His direction. The bird flew frantically, seeking the brightest light in the room because it thought that it would lead to freedom.
I did that too. I thought that my freedom would be found in wealth, fame, prestige, and power. All false lights. They don’t lead to true freedom. Real freedom only comes from the person who can make us free. He is the Light of the world. Even then, it’s not a freedom that He gives us as a possession. It is the fruit that comes from following Him.
A cry for help from inside the fowler’s snare.
My conversion to Christianity didn’t start with an observation. I really didn’t know if God was real or not. I was not convinced of God’s existence by persuasive words or powerful testimonies.
It started with a cry for help. “God, if You’re real, if You’re there, teach me. TEACH ME!!” I was desperate. The word desperate means hopeless. I was that bird, trapped in the fowler’s snare.
God heard me in that moment, and He moved. And He hasn’t stopped moving. And the light keeps leading me out of the snare into a freedom like nothing that I could have ever understood before.
If you want to read more about my conversion to faith in Jesus Christ, check out Demoniac, now available on Amazon.
