While finishing up a Sunday afternoon bike ride with my son through the park trails near our home, a ruckus in the sky above our church parking lot caught our attention.  Much to our amazement, two mockingbirds were squawking and generally harassing a large red-tailed hawk perched atop a light tower.  While the hawk stood at the ready to swoop down on some wayward squirrel or chipmunk, the mockingbirds were swooping around the bird of prey and doing whatever they could do to motivate him to move along from their territory.  If you are not from Texas, mockingbirds may be the size of robins but they have they aren’t intimidated by anything as evidenced by the little guy you see on the left maybe two feet from potential peril.  You’ll have to forgive the quality of the image above that I snapped from my Droid while straddling a bike.  But that hawk was mammoth and intimidating to us 40 feet below.

The image reminded me of how we have to keep our focus when we are on a mission.  Like the hawk, we have an assignment.  While it may not be snatching up rodents for lunch, we have a task in our daily routine for which we must remain diligent to achieve our goals.  Then along come the mockingbirds …

Sure the raptor could have used its impressive talons to bring an end to the noise.  But the hawk recognized the mockingbirds as simply a nuisance.  If we spend all of our time focused on nuisances then we’ll never accomplish our greater goals.

Lately it seems I have had more than my share of mockingbirds cackling around me.  They have swooped around me and sporadically caused me to lose direction.  But the words of Solomon in the book of Proverbs provide sage counsel:

Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil.  Proverbs 4:25-27 ESV

The expression “hawkeye” refers to the ability to focus and see well into the distance with clarity.  Watching the bird atop the light pole reminded me how hawks can possess such amazing vision.