We have had some trouble with birds at our house this spring. Birds must think we like them.  And it is not just this year either.  Last year we had a duck make a nest in our bushes and lay 13 eggs and then abandon them.  Then, a few days ago, we went to barbecue and there was a bird nest right on the grill of the BBQ.  We had left it uncovered for a few days and what can I say, the birds like us. You know what it means when birds are making a nest in your barbecue . . . you’re not barbecuing enough!  We’ll be correcting that problem immediately.

The greatest evidence that birds are ready to move into our place, should we decide to vacate the premises, was the nest they were building right outside our front door. I went to get the newspaper one morning and there were bits of dried grass and twigs on our front step.  I looked up and saw a partially constructed two story with attached garage bird house on our porch light.

 I don’t mind if birds decide to use the tree on our front lawn or our shrubs to build their homes in but, our porch light is a little too over the top.  We decided we would encourage them to build their home somewhere else by removing their building materials from the site.  You’d think that would solve the problem.  But, no . . . it wasn’t long before the birds were delivering more material and equipment and the nest was well underway again.  We cleared it away once more. But, again they returned. For some time we played this game with the birds of them putting up nest material on our porch light and us taking it away.

We finally decided that just clearing away the material was not going to do it. So we found some of our son’s old cologne (AXE, if anyone is taking notes) and sprayed it all over the top of our porch light.  Why did we use cologne? I don’t know, it just came to my mind as a good deterrent. The amazing thing was that it worked.  No more bird nest. We did, however, have a few 21 year old girls show up at the door looking for Mike for the next few days (just kidding).

Satan works on us a lot like those birds did. He is persistent, tempting us to sin time and time again. His hope is that we will give up and let the nest (sin) take up residence in us. It can be really frustrating to, time and time again, battle the same temptation, thinking you have dealt with it only to have it come back – sometimes in the exact same way.

We have to be as persistent as the enemy when dealing with temptation and not give in to sin. However, sometimes we need to do something a little more drastic.  We have to alter something so the temptation can’t come back the same way (like we did by spraying the cologne on the porch light). In this way, we mess with Satan’s plans and our own human nature in making sure we keep sin from making a nest in our heart.

I’ll keep you posted on other tips and tricks to use on birds.

Until Next Time!

Pastor Paul

What have you found successful when dealing with temptation and sin?  Leave your comments below.