As Carefree as a Sparrow

I was reading a devotion from my daily readings - The Word for Today a free booklet from Rhema Broadcasting.

While John was a prisoner on the Isle of Patmos, far from his loved ones and surrounded by the cries of abused captives, he had a vision of Jesus. He writes, ‘…When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead…’ (Revelation 1:17 NKJV) Incredible revelation in the midst of confinement, chaos and pain; that’s how it works! The difficult circumstances you’re going through right now can actually clear your perceptions, cause you to seek God as never before, and find answers for your life. John’s predicament proves that negative experiences don’t hide the Lord; they reveal Him. Instead of destroying you, Satan’s attack can actually develop you. Yes, it stresses you, but it also stretches you spiritually. There’s a place in God where fiery trials consume everything except your desire to know Him.. It was Paul’s all-consuming goal: ‘I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ.’ (Philippians 3:8 NIV) There it is: no reservations, no retreat, and no regrets; just a desire to know God intimately and a commitment to ‘go all the way with Him’. 

I was reminded of the time, in November 2004, when I was ill with a breakdown called Anxiety Adjustment Disorder.
At the time I was admitted into the Henry Bennett Centre at the Waikato Hospital which is the ward for the Mentally Ill.

At times I found I did not know what to pray for any more. I knew God was there right beside me but even my thoughts were 'scrambled" as to what I needed.
I even thought I had let God down by not coping as I was a Christian. I mean where was God in all this!
On the second day as I sat in the locked fenced courtyard waiting to see if I was allowed to stay with my friends I watched some sparrows having a dust bath and scratching in the grass for bugs.
I thought I wish I was a sparrow, free to fly away and with no worries.
As plain as can be God told me to look up in Matthew 6:25 onwards the scripture of how He cares for the sparrow and how I was not to worry about a thing and how I was so valuable to Him. I was so happy and relaxed in just that short time I knew I was in God's hands even then and that my faith could never be taken away from me.

Matthew 6:25-34

Do Not Worry

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. 

All scripture is from (New International Version)