The endurance sailor - All The Good Seed Daily Devotionals for 2025

Man who is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble.
Job 14:1

The endurance sailor
This bird is always on the move. While still in the nest, it starts training to be fit for its first flight. It fasts until it has its ideal flying weight, but when it makes its first attempt at flight, its parents are often already on their journey to warm Africa.

Once it is flying, it can stay aloft for up to three years – and this nonstop, without taking off again! It eats in flight, drinks in flight (by opening its beak just above the water surface) and sleeps in flight. Occasionally it also mates in flight. Only for nest building and brood care does it need solid ground under its feet.

Its normal flight speed is 32 km/h. While sleeping it still flies at 23 km/h, but during flight games it can accelerate up to 220 km/h. In all these activities, it can fly up to 200,000 km a year. It is full of restlessness. What bird is it? The little swift.

Isn’t this bird, in a way, a picture of mankind? The traffic jams on the road and in the air prove it. Only the so-called climate crisis or the Coronavirus pandemic have forced us to slow down. Yes, we too are on the move, constantly and increasingly, both on the road and in our thoughts. Often it seems as though we are always on the run.

But we can’t find God that way. Even the church father Augustine recognised this and wrote: “Our heart is restless until it finds rest in You, O God”. Jesus Christ therefore invites us: “Come to Me … and I will give you rest. Learn from Me … and you will find rest for your souls.” And further: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you”. We are not to live a swift’s existence, but rather to find God in order to become at rest with Him and to experience His peace (Matthew 11:28–29; John 14:27).

Today’s reading: Job 16:1-22 · Acts 10:17-33