“Every day I will bless You and praise Your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and His greatness is unsearchable. All Your works shall give thanks to You, O Lord, and all Your saints shall bless You!”  — Psalm 145:2-3, 10

One early Sunday morning while it was still dark, my father came into my bedroom and nudged me saying, “Get up; we’re going fishing.” Without saying anything and confused as to why this was happening, I got out of bed and started getting ready.

With our gear loaded up into the boat, we drove down to the pier and docked our boat in the water. I can still remember the eerie silence as we motored down the channel, headed toward one of the larger sections of the Ross Barnett Reservoir in Brandon. As daylight appeared, my vision began to adjust to my surroundings. As we reached the end of the channel, my father pushed down the throttle, and we were off to the other side of the reservoir, the “fishing side” as we called it growing up.

Minutes later, we found ourselves slowly trolling through a large area full of green lily-pads resting on the water. By this point, we were already catching some fish, and smaller birds were starting to sing as they flew by our fishing boat. Directly ahead of us on shore was a thicket of woods, about 20 to 30 yards away. There were different types of large trees with bare branches sticking out. My father kept looking in that direction for some reason. A little after 7 a.m., as the sun was starting to peek over the distant horizon, hundreds, if not thousands from a young boy’s perspective, of white and grey cranes started to flock over the trees! As they landed, they started to sing out all sorts of musical notes. Of course, this interesting display got our attention more than our fishing adventures. My father continued trolling the boat closer and closer as the birds rested among the treetops, vocally praising their creator!

“What are they doing, Dad?” I remember asking my father.

“They’re having church,” he said with a smile. For the next half hour or so, we watched and listened to the magnificent birds sing away as the sun rose, igniting the surface of the water with breathtaking oranges and yellows. A few minutes later, we packed everything up and made our way back home in time to head to Sunday School and Morning Worship! As we sang the opening hymn in worship, my father looked over at me and said, “This reminds me of what the birds were doing this morning.”

As Christians, we believe in the sovereignty of God. God reigns over all things. He is in control of every heartbeat of every creature on the face of the earth. The next time you are out in God’s creation, listen — for they are giving thanks to God as Psalm 145 teaches us. May we do the same this month — may we give God thanks “as the birds do” for we have so much to be thankful for in all our seasons of life (Philippians 4:4-7). Don’t forget that, friends, and always remember that we are to “call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, and we are saved from our enemies.” (Psalm 18:3).
The Rev. Seth Duhs is the minister of New Covenant Presbyterian Church.