The Pelican Who Knew Where to Knock

This week in Panama City, Florida, the staff at a federal fisheries lab heard a knock at the front door. When they went to look, it was a brown pelican, tapping its beak against the glass. WSB-TV

The bird was in trouble. It had fishing line wound around its wing, a hook buried deep, and cactus spines stuck in its foot. Of all the doors on the Florida panhandle, it had landed on the stoop of a building full of biologists who spend their days handling sharks and sawfish. They clipped the barb, worked the hook free, unwound the line, and pulled the spines out of its foot. Then they let it go. Sunny SkyzSunny Skyz

Nobody can say whether that pelican understood what it was doing. But it did the one thing it could do. It went somewhere and it knocked.

Scripture

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7, NIV)

How I Understand It

I notice that Jesus does not put any conditions on the knocking. He does not say knock politely, or knock with the right words, or knock once you have your life cleaned up. He just says knock.

He also does not promise that the door opens instantly, or that what is behind it looks the way we pictured. He promises the door opens. The burden Jesus puts on us in this verse is remarkably small. Show up. Make some noise. That is the whole ask.

And I think the three verbs build on each other. Asking is words. Seeking is effort. Knocking is standing at a door you cannot open yourself, admitting that somebody on the other side has to do it for you.

My Reflection

What gets me about that pelican is that it did not try to fix itself first.

That is exactly what I do. I get tangled up in something, and my first instinct is to work it loose on my own. I pull at the line. I tell myself it is not that bad. I would rather show up at the door already untangled so nobody has to see me in that shape. Meanwhile the hook works in deeper.

Pride is a strange thing. It will let you bleed rather than let you be helped.

There is also something in this story about the people on the other side of the door. Those biologists did not clock in that morning expecting to do wildlife rescue. That was not their job description. They heard a knock, they saw a creature in trouble, and they used the skill they already had. That is most of what being useful looks like. You do not usually get a calling with trumpets. You get an interruption, and you answer it.

So I want to be both things. I want to be the pelican, honest enough to go knock instead of pretending I am fine. And I want to be the staff on the other side, the kind of person who opens the door when something shows up hurting at an inconvenient time.

If you are carrying something today that you have been quietly trying to work loose by yourself, consider this your permission to stop. Go knock. God is not annoyed by the interruption. And you might be surprised how many people around you have steady hands and would be glad to use them.

A Prayer

Father, thank You that You never asked me to arrive untangled. Forgive me for the times my pride has kept me pulling at something alone when You were right there on the other side of the door. Give me the humility to knock, and the patience to wait while You do the part I cannot do. And make me useful to somebody today. When a person shows up hurting at an inconvenient moment, let me be the one who opens the door instead of the one who is too busy. In Jesus’ name, amen.

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