This morning I noticed something that was very interesting.  I love to watch the birds feeding and frolicking around the feeders, and in the trees.  The hummingbirds are especially unique.  One would not think that in such a small and beautifully adapted body that there would be such a hostile and mean disposition.  They would rather fight, bicker, risk personal injury, and suffer hunger and thirst to safeguard what they consider their possession alone, than to share peaceably with their mate and other birds the sugar water placed there for all of them.  To us this is an amusing and entertaining activity to watch, but to them it is their life. 

The human race is much the same as these little friends of ours.  We can see this in the portion of Adam's posterity living in the Middle East.  We see, hear, and read about all the trouble going on over in the Mideast every day, and wonder why in the world can't these people just get along.  The reason is simple--Satan's influence of GREED and self-declared possession; holding to what they feel is theirs and not letting go.  This is very understandable.  How would we like it if someone came and started taking over our house uninvited?  Moving furniture around, cooking in the kitchen we have built as though they owned it, or sleeping in the beds we have purchased for our rest and comfort.  Has that ever happened to any of us?  Maybe so, but not on the scale that it has been happening in that part of the world for so long. 

It is not a new thing either.  God gave the land of Canaan to the children of Israel by promise to their father Abraham.  He did not give it to Ishmael or his descendants; only to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  He went before them as they went in to possess, and made the way easy on many occasions.  He said to Cyrus concerning the conquering of Babylon, I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:  (Isaiah 45:2) He had said the same thing to the children of Israel as he brought them to the borders of their land, when he said, Remember the word which Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, saying, The LORD your God hath given you rest, and hath given you this land.  (Joshua 1:13)  He fought their battles, clearing out the people that had no legal right to be there, including the children of Ishmael.  Also, this included the children of Israel, when he scattered them to the four winds because of their continuous disobedience.  The Lord repossessed that land because the Israelites defaulted by disobedience.  Now it is a spiritually desolate land, lying in the hot and and sun.

The children of Israel and the children of Ishmael today are fighting, bickering, risking personal and family injury and death, because they think the land is theirs.  It belonged to God before He gave it to Israel; and it belonged to Him while Israel possessed it; it belongs to Him now as the natural children of Abraham war over what is not any of theirs by promise or relationship anymore.

I noticed early this morning that there were three hummingbirds feeding at the same time; allowing each other to drink their first drinks until they figured that each one had enough stored in the tank to resume their futile and ridiculous fight over what had been freely given every one of them.  Today there is a pseudo-peace in Lebanon, as there has been in Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, etc., etc.  They only stop their fighting until they figure it is time to take it up again and again and again.  All the time the hummingbirds are 'peaceably' drinking together early in the morning, their familiar war sound can still be heard as they drink.  Thank God that His kingdom is not of this world, and that the Israel God loves is spiritual and not that natural confused state across the sea.

Your Brother in Christ, I hope,

Carl