My heart dropped at the sight of the dead fish laying on the rocks outside the pond. How did it get there? There was no way it could jump high enough to clear the sides of the pond. It must have been carried there. What could do that to a fish? I had never seen a possum or raccoon in my yard in the three years I’ve lived here so I doubt it was one  of them. A toad might try to eat one but wouldn’t be able to jump up out of the pond with one in its mouth. Even if it did, it wouldn’t just leave it once it started eating it. It had to be a bird. One of the many that live around the area, many of which eat fish.

I imagined a bird swooping down, grabbing a fish, and then accidently dropping it as it flew away. No way was that going to happen again, not if I can help it. I don’t care that other people say it’s just the circle of life and that if I want a pond with fish, I should let nature take its course. My heart is for my fish. They didn’t ask to be easy prey contained in my small pond. I’m the one who set them there. And I’m going to protect them.

I grieved for the lifeless fish in my hand. It had survived two winters under snow and ice, two hot summers when the water temperature rose to bath water temp, the recent traumatizing chase and capture in a net, and a temporary stay in a plastic tub. And now it was dead. Captured by the enemy. Dropped and forgotten. I buried it in my raised garden bed. At least it’s death is not wasted. And then I covered my pond with a large net. It may not look as pretty, but it’s much safer for my fish.

God chose the Israelites to be His. With the call of Abraham, He set them in place. His heart was for His people and He protected them.  There were other nations, but this is the one He focused on.

The Bible talks about people being protected under the shadow of God’s wings. Birds have wings. Angels have wings. Somehow I don’t think God actually has wings, although I could be wrong. I think God was using the same imagery Jesus used when He cried over Jerusalem.  “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! Matthew 23:37

No one likes to be confined. We all long for freedom, which is what God created in us when He created Adam. The Bible doesn’t explicitly say that but it seems if Adam and Eve were told to go forth and dominate the world, that that was a lot of freedom. But sin entered the world and through disobedience Adam and Eve lost that freedom. There was an enemy now that wanted them and their offspring dead. And so God set His wings over the Israelites just like I set a net over my fish pond. As long as the Israelites stayed where He set them by loving and obeying Him, they were safe. But if they strayed out from under it through disobedience, they were easy prey for those who sought to harm them.

The net is not pretty. It was not what I wanted for my pond. But it is necessary at this time.

God’s laws may feel confining. They may not be what He wanted for mankind. But they are necessary at this time.

Instead of complaining about His commandments, maybe we should thank Him for setting His heart on us and protecting us from things we can’t see.

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Scriptures:

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40

 “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil.  If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rule, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.  But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess.  I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.” Deuteronomy 30:15-20

How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life;
in your light do we see light. Psalm 36:7-9

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Genesis 1:26

Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the LORD set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. Deuteronomy 10:14-16

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundations of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him, in love. Ephesians 1:3-4

“Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name. Psalm 91:14