The Blackbird is back sitting on her nest and being the dutiful mother once again.
Sadly, the likelihood is that as she was away for the best part of the day the eggs have probably died. The cruelness of nature once again!

But maybe there is a metaphor for ministry here too.

Sometimes people, or leaders, go through the motions and seem to do all the right things and yet they could be wasting their time because they are doing it too late, or inappropriately etc etc.

The blackbirds are doing what is instinctively right for them to do – but their ‘mistake’ (for sake of a better term) was to allow themselves to be scared off by the magpie. If they had stayed sat on the nest they could still be sitting on live eggs. They got scared, lost focus and disappeared only later to come back when it was seen to be safe.

Sometimes to come back when it is safe is already too late. There is something powerful about standing in painful situations with others rather than retreating. There is something necessary about ministry, developing a new transformational life, that inevitably brings pain and needs a stand to be made.

I guess we need discernment to know when to run and when to stand – but I can’t help but think too much running occurs when a stand should be made.