For the Birds

[Darris McNeely] I love to spend time watching birds. Yeah. Me. This is a little bit different BT Daily, one that you might not think would be coming from me. But I love to watch birds. I feed my birds. I have bird feeder set up in my backyard. And right now, a day like today, seven inches of snow, I've got a whole backyard full of Cardinals, who are... They are crimson red against the white snow, eating the seeds that I put out there.

Watching birds feed for me for years has been therapeutic. It's a de-stressor. It's just relaxing. And I finally found some backup and support for that because studies I just read the other day from England, Los Angeles, and Spain, it says, indicate the closer you live to a park, the more contact you have with nature, the better your mood, psychological well-being, mental health, and cognitive functioning scores will be. In short, watching birds is good for you. I've known it all along, that's why I do it.

And something else, this month, February is National Bird-Feeding Month. I bet you didn't know that. But it is. Now why all this talk about birds?

Well, look, birds are part of God's creation. And as I've said, I've watched them for years and just enjoy just spending, you know, up to, you know, an hour at a time sometimes, it gets away from me, watching the birds in my backyard. But I don't think that's wrong. You know the scripture in Matthew chapter 6:26, where Christ said this, "look at the birds of the air." Well, I do that. You should as well. "They neither sow nor reap nor gather in the barns," of course not. I put the bird feed out for them. "And yet, your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"

Ultimately, God feeds my birds, your birds, and all the birds. That's what the Scripture says. But Christ said to look at them, watch them. There's benefit to it. And sometimes that's what we all need to do just to calm down, settle back, and to relax.

That's BT Daily. Join us next time.

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