Over the weekend Greg and I took a little time to work in our backyard.  The weather has been especially hot so we were trying to finish the work quickly.  Greg moved from bush to bush trimming branches that looked wayward while I made my way around the yard pulling random weeds.

All of a sudden a mother Quail flew to the top of the fence in front of me, basically yelling at me!  The behaviour continued for some time as she moved side to side along the fence screaming at me to “go away”….she was frantic!

Greg and I could not figure out what was upsetting this mama bird ~ we didn’t see any babies near by but we decided to move away from where she was to calm her down.    Within minutes the tiniest baby Quail (seriously not bigger than the tip of my thumb) came running along the fence, darted underneath and ran to safety.  So tiny and seemingly insignificant but that mama knew one of her babies was missing.  She had many other babies to be mindful of yet she left them to go and find this tiny, lost baby.

As I pondered what I had seen I was quickly reminded of the story of the Good Shepherd that was willing to leave his flock to find the one tiny lamb that had gotten into harms way.

Matthew 18:12-14 says:

^“What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray and gets lost, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountain and go in search of the one that is lost?

And if it should be that he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not get lost.

Just so it is not the will of My Father Who is in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost and perish.”

Do you ever feel insignificant? forgotten?  Do you ever wonder if God is mindful of you?  Does He hear you?  Would He notice if you were “lost”?  Would He fight for you?

Pastor Rick Warren expresses this thought about how mindful God is about us:

“What does it mean that God is mindful of you? It means he’s alert, he’s focused, he’s paying attention. When God is mindful of you, he notices everything in your life. Matthew 10:19-30 says not even a sparrow can fall to the ground without God noticing. He even numbers every hair on your head. That’s how close God pays attention to you.”

May you be encouraged today by knowing you and I are never insignificant to the God who is always mindful of us.  🙂