freedom from the perch

In her book 9 Steps to Financial Freedom, author Suzy Orman tells the story of a merchant she met in Mexico one time who was selling parrots.  The parrots, she noticed, were not in cages but  tightly clinging to the perches out in the open.  They could have flown away at any moment, but did not.  When she asked the merchant why this was the case he told her, "I train them to think their perches mean safety and security. When they come to think this, they naturally wrap their claws tightly around the perch and don't want to release it. They keep themselves confined, as if they've forgotten they know how to fly."

Orman wanted to know if this was difficult to train them in this way.  The merchant responded that, while it was very difficult with younger birds, the older ones were quite easy to train.  Orman writes, 

Suddenly a lightbulb went off in my head. We are just like those poor parrots. We have been taught to clutch our money as tightly as we can, as if our money is the perch of our safety and security. Just like those parrots, we have all forgotten how free we really are—with or without the perch. The more afraid we are, the tighter we hold on, and the more we have trapped ourselves. (p.262, Three Rivers Press, 2000)

The man in the parable from Luke 19.11-27 was not unlike those parrots.  Fearing loss and punishment, rather than taking the risk of investing his mina, he held tightly to it, finding this the "safe" and "more secure" option.  We do the same, I think.  God calls us to live and give freely, to trust in him and invest all that we've been given in his kingdom work, but we give in to fear.  We hold tightly to our gifts and blessings, almost as if we believe this is the safest thing to do.  The truth is, however, it's not safe at all.  The parable reveals that the wisest and safest thing to do is let go; hold loosely.  What God honors most is risk and faith and lives of putting to work all that we've been given for his purposes in the world.

I pray that in the uncertainties of life in the 21st century that we would all learn to let go of the perch of our imagined safety and fly freely into the world of God's grace, trustworthiness and mission.  Amen.