The God of Sparrows and Children

Discernment Work That is Ours to Do

The “real” world has little room for a God of sparrows and children.

—Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy

One of my favorite pages in The Next Right Thing Guided Journal is the first page of every month where there’s room to write a quote. This is my quote for the month of March. Sometimes I choose a quote early in the month, other times it takes the full month to discern some words that may be rising to the surface. This month, though, as soon as I read this line in The Divine Conspiracy I knew it was one I wanted to hold on to. Two things linger with me from Willard’s words.

First, he put the word real in quotes because he is making the point that what we call real—the world we can see and touch and interact with in time and space—isn’t the only real there is. But it’s often the only real we consider.

And two, the imagery of sparrows and children is so tender, so beautiful in its simplicity, that it slows me down to consider it. Because in the realm of the real real, every sparrow and every child is beloved and beheld.

I’ve been carrying a few questions around with me since I’ve read this quote: In what ways am I giving the “real” world my attention? What difference do I notice in myself when I turn my attention to the God of sparrows and children?