When my boys were teenagers, we badgered them into cleaning the windows one day. Come dinnertime, our family seated round the table, the brothers began — as all brothers do — to give each other grief about the day’s work. Sam and Luke had each taken halves of a divided window in the dining room; Sam was now bragging about how much cleaner his side was, appealing to the evidence like a trial attorney. We turned our attention toward the window in question — at that exact moment a robin smacked into Luke’s pane, fell to the ground stunned, shook itself, and flew away. We looked at one another, mouths open, eyebrows raised, and burst into laughter.

Nature had voted. God had voted.

His timing could not have been richer. “Whose window is clean? Who slacked on the job?” Thwack. Brilliant. You couldn’t have asked for a more choice reply. The whole episode was hysterical. Now, if you have any belief in the sovereignty of God, you discover that these moments are orchestrated. Not a sparrow hits a window without your Father knowing it, or something like that.

Haven’t you seen something in nature that made you laugh? Perhaps you did not make the connection — that you were meant to laugh. That it was God who made you laugh. That he laughed with you. Now you know something very important about Jesus.

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