Blue Jays

I was washing dishes, absentmindedly staring out the window when a flash of blue caught my attention – and then another. As I watched more attentively, two blue jays appeared to be checking out the trees in our yard for possible new home sites.

Blue jays are so pretty. The sparrows and wrens, even the robins, look kind of drab by comparison. I do enjoy the jays in my yard – as long as I am inside and the windows are closed!

I am not a bird classifications expert but I am pretty sure that blue jays do not fall into the songbird category. Is there a category for annoying noisemakers – because that is where they should go.

How can something look so nice on the outside and then just sound so…wrong?

Ever have moments like that? You are going through your day and things are looking pretty good and then something comes out of your mouth that is….cringe worthy… hurtful…just wrong.

I make excuses. I’m tired. It’s been a long day. You don’t know what it is like to deal with someone like that…it’s really not my fault…it’s hormones!

Luke 6:45 says, "The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks."

Kind of an “ouch” verse, isn’t it?

And so, I pray with the Psalmist, "Set a guard over my mouth O Lord…" (Ps.141:3a)

That’s not a bad prayer – not a wrong prayer – but sometimes I think that I pray it not so much because I want to honour God with my words but because I don’t want the ‘real me’ – the flawed me – the ‘I’m not always the nice person that I want you to think that I am’ me to be seen.

Instead, I need to pray that my heart would be changed. Changed so that what flows out brings hope and healing. Not hurt. Not condemnation. Just life.

The prayer I need:

"Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me." (Ps. 51:10)

Ruth