A Bird in the Hand

A blood curdling scream shook the house as I prepared to jump on a conference call. I shot upstairs to find my wife bolting out of our bedroom slamming the door behind her. “There’s a bird in our room!” With half of the children crying and the other half wanting to dive into adventure, I quickly googled “how to catch a bird in your house.” The search results might have simply said “you don’t.” Opening one window, I somehow managed to shoo our avian house guest out. Immediately I began searching for the source of his entry. I checked all the bedroom windows, examined every obscure corner, and even measured the size of vent openings after googling “what size cracks can birds fit through?” For no less than 30 minutes, I was positive I heard chirps and tweets coming from inside the walls. I scoured our upstairs with a flashlight and butterfly net with dread, anticipating the Alfred Hitchcock reenactment waiting for me. Backing out of a bedroom, I was startled by my neighbor’s voice calling from downstairs – “Hey, do you know your garage door and the door to your house are wide open?”

Because the drama had taken place upstairs, I was sure that was where the problem began. How often do I fixate on the cracks in some part of my leadership while neglecting the wide-open door that is letting the real problems in? I may think I yearn for truth but do I search for it on every floor of my life? How often do I try to keep God to just one room of my house? Here’s to keeping birds out and letting Him in.