The white-breasted nuthatch and its close cousins, the red-breasted nuthatch and the pygmy nuthatch, are some of my favorite birds. What I enjoy most about them is their ability to walk up and down tree trunks headfirst.
Ornithological experts say that they don’t actually walk down tree trunks. Instead, they hang by their toes in a particular way that makes it look like they’re walking. That may be, but to me, nuthatches can walk down a tree trunk headfirst
Nuthatches are friendly. Not frightened at all by people, they will come quite close to you if you stay still. Nuthatches are social birds. I quite often see them feeding with flocks of chickadees or other birds. Their call is an easily recognized “Kvaak”. They are prolific singers with various combinations of five or six kvaaks..
Being the “wrong way around” doesn’t seem to bother nuthatches in the least. They are quite comfortable having the world upside down. Our entire world is upside down.
The things the world values the most will be burned up one day. The values the world promotes are typically contrary to the values that God advocates.
When I was a non-believer, I often felt that Christians did not live in the real world. Their values and priorities were often the polar opposites of what I saw around me. It made no sense. I have since come to understand that the Christian world is the real world.
This upside-down phase of living is something temporary brought about by sin. On the sixth day of creation, God saw what He had done and called it very good. It has been in a state of deterioration ever since. A time will come when He wipes the slate clean and restores the world to its perfect state. This fallen world claims that power, possessions, position, and prestige are blessings and laudable goals.
Contrast that with what the Apostle Paul wrote.
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Ephesians 4:1-3 ESV
and then, later in the same chapter,
Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
None of us are perfect in our faith walk. All of us will succumb to the ways of the world at times. Still, we are clearly called to live differently from the world. We are to walk in the world but not of it.
People will mock you, even hate you for walking a different way than they do. Their spirit is blinded, but the Holy Spirit in us still reminds them that something isn’t quite right in the world. Being intentionally blind, they don’t want to be reminded. When you struggle to see which way is up, look to the Word for guidance, then walk in the ways of Jesus.
Those around you may be going in a different direction, but Christ’s path is the true way. Until He comes again, may we encourage one another to walk “upside down” in the Spirit’s power.
Be blessed
Kevin
SUMMARY
This world has its values upside down, but Christ’s path is the true way. Let’s encourage one another to walk “upside down” in the Spirit’s power.
TAKEAWAY
The things this world values most, power, possessions, position, and prestige, will be burned up one day, and they often run opposite to what God values.
Paul calls us to walk with humility, gentleness, patience, and love, putting off the old self and putting on the new.
When others mock the way you walk, or you struggle to see which way is up, look to the Word and walk in the ways of Jesus.