Helicopters

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.--Matthew 6:28f.
 Each spring, I play with silver maple seeds. These "helicopters" have been around forever, but I've only known about them a few years. My son-in-law, Jeff, picked one of them up from the ground and threw it into the air. "Helicopters," he exclaimed. I watched in wonder as the little bud twirled in the air, gently falling back to the earth. I had never paid them much attention before. I guess I was just too busy thinking about "grown-up" things. I had my eyes on the ground, seeing, but not perceiving God's wonder before me.
I seems that in springtime, silver maples shed their seeds, made in the shape of little half-propeller blades with weighted hubs on the end. The hub part is what shields the seeds. If you look at the pod from the leafy end, it looks like an airplane wing. A stiff spar curves out from the bulb, and leaf grows out from the inside of the curved spar, making a perfect airfoil. People had been looking for the secret of flight for thousands of years, while it lay at their feet each spring. Once the Wright brothers perfected a working airplane and propeller, it was another thirty years or so before Igor Sikorsky's team produced a successful helicopter.
Each spring, God showed the people how to make an airplane, and they just ignored the message. They were too busy worrying about their crops or keeping an eye out for marauding Sabeans or something to pay attention to nature's wonder. So much lay at their feet and hung in the air all around them, and all they could do was manufacture spears and swords to kill each other.
I play with these "helicopters" and share them with children. "Who needs expensive toys?" I ask, "When God gives you toy helicopters to play with?" In addition, my wife sometimes teaches children how to take lightning bugs and write their names on their shirts. Truly, God's nature is full of wonder for children of all ages.
It says so in the Nineteenth Psalm: "The heavens declare the glory of God: the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech: night after night they display knowledge." --Psalm 19:1-2.
Oh, to be a child at heart, and always glory in God's nature. Learn from children how to have fun in small things whenever you can, and enjoy contentment in God's gifts. Like silver maple helicopters.