Of camels and hummingbirds

There is a lovely little hummingbird who has decided to call our garden his own. This, of course, has inspired more education about hummingbirds. And so recently I have learned that hummingbirds consume more than their own weight in nectar each day. They need to eat constantly to sustain the rapid beating of their wings: that beautiful and constant motion requires a lot of energy.

Around the same time, I was reminded of the verse in Hebrews 5 which talks about how solid food (from the Scriptures) is for the mature, who by constant use  have trained themselves to discern good from evil.
The words constant use got my attention. They reminded me of how Jesus taught us to pray not just for bread (sustenance), but daily bread. Daily dependence on God. How the Bible teaches that man lives not by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from God. Every daily word. Which we need to constantly use if we are to grow into spiritual maturity. In other words, spiritual maturity is for spiritual hummingbirds. Constant movement and constant growth needs constant fuel. Wikipedia writes of the hummingbird that "hummingbirds are continuously hours away from starving to death". That's daily bread. Or daily nectar, as the case may be. Not letting even a few hours go by without the Lord.

But the truth of the matter is that I often am more of a spiritual camel than a spiritual hummingbird. Camels are kind of the anti-hummingbird in the metabolic world. My trusty internet sources tell me that during winters in the Sahara Desert, camels have been known to survive six or seven months without actually drinking. Their far less frequent meals turn energy into fat, which is stored in their humps and can be drawn on in times of depletion.

Too often, I live like a spiritual camel. Although daily bread is available to me, I can too easily develop a 'feast and famine' mentality - where I go through periods of spiritual gluttony (wonderful! enriching! deep-soul-thirst-quenching time with God!), and then I head off into the proverbial desert of life and see how far I can wander before my thirst for God overtakes me.

This is foolishness!!! No camel would go six or seven months without food and water if there actually was food and water available!! Sure, there are times when we are forced into the desert - and during those times maybe we could rely on some camel-like attributes in allowing past time with the Lord to nourish us through the lean times... but for the most part, I need to be more like a hummingbird. Daily food. Constant use. Spiritual nectar. Learning to say as Psalm 119:103 does: "How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth."

After all, a camel may not be able to enter through the eye of a needle. But surely a hummingbird has a better shot?