The other day, I came home from work to eat lunch. As I was getting out of my car, I saw a duck by our curb that was acting frantic. It kept walking in circles and quacking. Then it would fly in a small circle and land and walk again in a circle making a frantic quacking sound the entire time.

I watched for a couple of minutes but couldn’t figure out what the duck was doing.

As I started to walk into the house, I said, “Lord, what is the problem with that duck?” Suddenly, the answer came to me. “Its babies fell through the street grate into the sewer.”

I stopped in my tracks, went and got a spotlight from my garage, and went over to the sewer grate a couple of feet from where the duck was standing. I shined it down, and saw and heard six little baby ducklings.

They didn’t know what to do nor did mother duck. Nor did I. I thought, “Lord you showed me that they were here. You didn’t show me that so that I could do nothing. What should I do?”

Suddenly I saw another picture in my mind. This sewer went to the creek in my back yard. The end of the sewer that goes into the creek has a grate over it. I ran to the creek where the sewer extended into it. I got down by the grate and began making duck calls.

I probably sounded like a fool but what the heck, I was on a rescue mission. I thought the ducklings could hear me because it seemed like I could hear them moving toward me as I quacked. (No jokes about being a quack, please!)

I went back to the mother duck and tried to coax her to the back yard. It wasn’t working. I went back to the creek sewer entrance and quacked some more. The babies were coming toward me.

The mother came back to see what I was doing. I lifted the grate figuring she might hear her babies and go get them. She did. She got them out and they were all fine.

Then I got some bird seed that I had in a garage and put in on a plate for them to eat. They came and dove in it. (I hope it was alright for the babies to eat. The mother let them.)

Later the Lord used all this to speak to me. He said, “Today you experienced what I do daily. People get in a crisis. They cry out to me. I try to lead them to their solution but they are so absent of faith and blinded by their crisis that they can’t see past it (like when you were trying to lead her to the creek.”)

The Lord said, “Just as you had the ducks’ best interests at heart the entire time, so do I. But, because people are paralyzed by fear instead of being at peace while leaning on me in faith, they too often miss their help.”

Jesus reminds us of His care for us always saying, “What is the price of five sparrows—two copper coins? Yet God does not forget a single one of them. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.” (Luke 12:6-7 NLT)

I thank God that He does care for us intimately and on every level of our life – from the most important things down to helping a distressed duck. His wisdom and grace to help are available to us for every situation. Praise His Holy Name!,

(We are grateful to Pastor Tim Burt for granting us permission to reproduce this post from his blog Fresh Manna. Pastor Tim serves as one of the associate pastors at Living Word Christian Center in Brooklyn Park, MN)