Why Didn't God Make Us More Like Pigeons?

I was reminded recently of my childhood neighbor whose hobby was raising pigeons.  The reason people raise pigeons is that they have a unique ability: when properly trained they always find their way home, and without detours.  For 3000 years pigeons have been used for everything from sport to military operations. The French gave a medal of honor to one  bird credited with saving 100 lives. The work of Le Vaillant, flying through German bullets and gas-filled skies to deliver news back home was deemed worthy of the Cross of War. Until quite recently French pigeons were used to deliver blood samples from the hospital to the lab, proving faster than vehicles at the task. Today there is some debate about whether to upgrade the French Defense Ministry’s dovecoat  which has 150 birds as a defense against the shutdown of communications systems.  China has gone even further than France, building a dovecoat of 50,000 birds which are trained by 1,00 trainers.  The fascination with pigeons in China led one racing hobbyist to pay $328,000 (!) for one pigeon. (Source: Wall Street Journal)

This all is made possible by one unchangeable fact, when the sender releases the receiver’s pigeon, the pigeon will fly through storms and heat and cold with a single-minded purpose: get me home to the one who trained me and cares for me.  Wouldn’t that be a comforting certainty for parents of teenagers about midnight on Friday: the child will come home, you can go to bed.  And it would save a great deal of angst among parents of toddlers who walk through malls in fear of little Suzy straying. But, as we know, our tendencies as humans to stray from home doesn’t end when we become adults.  We may be home physically, but emotionally and psychologically, we stray far and wide from the “homes” we have made with spouses and friends.  And centuries ago God sent prophets to his people to remind them, “I formed you, I trained you to walk, I fed you, won’t you please come home.”  The need for that message exists still today, perhaps more than ever. People have forgotten, or maybe never knew, their spiritual homes. So we keep on flying down so many different paths, thinking each one will finally bring us home to joy and peace, when all they really lead to are dead-ends.

Augustine famously wrote, “Our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you.”  Maybe if God had made us like pigeons, where we couldn’t take any other paths than the one back to our home with God, then we wouldn’t need prophets. Do we have the ears to hear God’s call to our souls, and the courage to fly straight home to our rest?