If these unprovoked attacks continue, all of us are going to be anxious about going into the front yard. The mockingbirds are nesting and they have staked their claim on several fronts: KEEP AWAY-ABSOLUTELY NO LENIENCY. You get too close to their territory and you're at risk! And it doesn't matter how big the offender might be-30 pounds of dog or 180 pounds of man! They warn you verbally, and if you don't heed that warning they take action-they dive bomb you!

Silly to let an itty, bitty bird control your outside activities, isn't it? What a display of courage by that four ounce creature! What loyalty! What fierce protection!

Sometimes Satan doesn't heed the warnings I post about "no leniency." He gets awfully close to my house and I retreat--I'm so little and he's so big! But when I do that, I'm forgetting just how courageous and brave I can be. Oh, not me, myself and I. No, it's He, Himself, and Him. Jesus told me that His grace was sufficient for anything that might come into my life (II Cor. 12:9). My responsibility? Believe Him and then act like I'm the heavy weight. I can warn that vicious old devil verbally and if he doesn't back down--I can dive bomb him! He'll duck and run (James 4:7b). And I can do that-because of Who lives in me. That falls under the heading of "Grace."