- The act of making up for
- An exchange for something of value
- The act of saving from sin
*
After dinner, my dad called my mom and I back to the garage. He pointed to the window where two hummingbirds had flitted against the glass before we ate our meal. “One flew out, but the other one is stuck above the garage door.”
I ran into the empty space where my brother’s truck normally sits and stared up at the ceiling. The hummingbird now flitted around the metal structure holding the motor for the garage door. When the tiny bird rested, I could see his coat was an iridescent green. His wings were tipped almost black and dotted with small white specks. His beak, long and thin like a sewing needle, had an even smaller tongue poking out. The poor little guy was hungry.
My mom and I ran around the house grabbing every red thing we could find, since we believed hummingbirds to be attracted to the strong color. I peeled the Coke wrapper off a plastic bottle and held it over my phone light. My mom found an old emergency flashlight with a blinking red setting. We grabbed a red bird feeder and filled it with water. We even sang Zipadee-doo-da, but nothing could distract the little bird from pointing his beak straight at the plain white ceiling.
*
At church Sunday morning, a visiting pastor spoke on the importance of finding our purpose in God. Jesus’s mission, the pastor said, could be summarized in a single word: redemption. Our mission was the same. We are to redeem our city and our nation. We are to love God, not serve Him out of fear.
The pastor challenged us to find our true purpose with the question, “Is it what God wants you to do, or is it doing what you want in the name of God?” The pastor said his life had two redemptions: the first, redemption from sin; the second, redemption from self.