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When a candle is snuffed out, no light remains; however, when a bird is chased away, it finds a new branch from which it continues to sing its song.

Boreham traces the presence of God through the history of the church, beginning at Antioch.

When Paul and Barnabas would not be heard, the bird flew away to sing to the Gentiles. As the two tried to preach in Asia and were turned away from city after city, they reached the sea where a man from Macedonia bade the bird to perch there and sing its song.

In the seventh century when the Saracens, or Moors, tried to wipe out every vestige of Christianity, the seed planted by Augustine had taken root and began to sprout and grow. There the bird found a welcoming branch on which to sing. It warbled happily through the work of St. Columba and St. Patrick in Scotland and in Ireland.

In 1793, when Christianity was assaulted and the Cross was ripped from Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, the bird was chased away, only to continue its song in India as William Carey began his missionary work.

As the Puritan Revolution of the seventeenth-century came to an end, the bird was shooed away and found a branch in Germany where it sang as Count Zinzendorf birthed the Moravian movement. This was the movement that caught the
attention of John Wesley, whose heart was strangely warmed as the bird sang lustily at Aldersgate Street.

Spiritual revival in England was reinstituted, leaving an influence that, Boreham says, birthed a
permanent memorial which he called the great Methodist Church.

As the Napoleonic era burst forth, the bird was again chased away; however, it found a branch in Scotland, from which it sang mightily. Then, as its song waned in Scotland, it soared to London and energized and encouraged the work of Charles Haddon Spurgeon with its song.

In our tumultuous, 21st-century existence, where has the bird found a branch that welcomes it to sing?

Author Bob Reccord writes that, as he recovered from a traumatic cervical spine injury, frustrated and depressed, he found himself sitting on his porch on a blustery, cold day. When a bird landed on the porch railing and began to sing, Bob could not believe that any creature could find a reason to sing in such weather.

The bird returned to sing its song the next day — a warm, sunny day. Bob’s epiphany revealed to him that the bird’s song is not hushed by outward circumstances, but held steady by something in its inner being.

In spite of our circumstances, the presence of God must find expression through the song that we carry in our heart. Then will God exult over us with singing, drowning out the noise and the tyranny of the world with a song of divine promise.