A Patient Life

In our back yard, we have a Red Shouldered Hawk that likes to sit in a particular tree. While the most common hawk in Missouri is the Red Tailed Hawk, I see far more Red Shouldered Hawks in our neighborhood. Named for the reddish brown shoulder patches, the Red Shouldered Hawk is slimmer and smaller than its cousin the Red Tailed. They are monogamous, mate for life, and occupy the same territory year after year. They typically mate at two years of age and live to be about twelve, so the pair of hawks we have occupying our property is the same one for about a decade. They amicably share the forest behind our house thrilling us with their repeated cries of “kee-aah” and their acrobatics as they mate in the crisp late winter.

Our particular hawk will perch for long stretches watching for movement in the grass and along where the forest meets the yard. Some hawks have the equivalent to 20/2 vision, meaning they can see 20 feet away with the clarity an average human can see at 2 feet away. In other words, the smallest print you can read when it is two feet away from your eyes, a hawk could distinguish from 20 feet away. This also means that some hawks can see a mouse up to one-half mile away. So as my hawk is sitting on his branch, I realize he is watching the ants crawl through the grass on the other side of the yard. He is looking not only at the mowed yard and the tall grass and wildflowers at the edge of the yard, but also peering deeply into the forest. Waiting for any movement that might indicate dinner. Red Shouldered Hawks are indiscriminate eaters, feasting on anything from large insects, frogs and toads, lizards and snakes, to mice, shrews, moles, gophers, and other small mammals. He is incredibly still, moving only his head, and will sit for sometimes up to an hour, if he is left undisturbed. Hawks are exceedingly patient and I imagine they spend much of their day waiting for food to come by.

Watching this hawk reminds me of what the Scriptures teach about patience. While patience is one of the fruits of the Spirit found in Galatians 5:22-23, it also appears to be a fruit of being a hawk. I sometimes wonder if our resident hawk knew Scripture would he be reflecting on passages about patience while blending into the foliage of the tree. Perhaps he would ruminate on Romans 8:25, “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience,” or Galatians 6:9, “So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.” The Bible has a lot to say about patience, not just in isolated verses, but in the span of lives recorded in the stories. It is often easy to miss the span of years when reading a few short verses or even a few chapters. What takes minutes to read took the characters years to live. Joseph lived 13 years in slavery and prison between the dream God gave him and his brother’s visit in Egypt (Genesis 37-46), Noah labored between 50-75 years to build the ark (Genesis 6-8), and Abraham spent 25 years waiting for the promise of a son to be born (Genesis 12-21). All of these stories demonstrate the tremendous patience that is required to see God’s promises come to fruition, but come to fruition they will. We must just be patient. As Psalm 37:7-9 says:

Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him;
    do not fret over those who prosper in their way,
    over those who carry out evil devices.

Refrain from anger and forsake wrath.
    Do not fret—it leads only to evil.
For the wicked shall be cut off,
    but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.