Soaring Like Eagles
These days have been hard on me. I feel worn down and exhausted. The first few weeks were full of adrenaline as I pushed through, but now the daily grind has started to wear me down. Maybe you feel the same way. So how can we find strength when life wears us down?
The prophet Isaiah has a specific word for people who are exhausted and worn down by pace or the type of life they are living. “Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:30-31. Isaiah gives us a great deal to look at, but for this blog, I want to ask the questions, what does it mean to mount up with wings like eagles?
Did you know that Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey and not the eagle to be a symbol for America? I’m glad the eagle won out, it’s such a better symbol. I like the turkey, but I like it best for Thanksgiving. An eagle is a strong majestic bird with keen skills and amazing abilities.
One ability Isaiah highlights is the eagle’s ability to soar in storms. The eagle can function better during turbulent weather than on calm and peaceful days. Stormy weather is often the result of cold and warm air currents clashing. Those thermal updrafts create a wind velocity that eagles learn how to ride. It lifts them higher with less effort and from their elevated position they can see more with their extraordinary eyesight. Under normal circumstances, the eagle can fly about 50 mph. However, in a storm the eagle can reach speeds of 80 mph or more.
So how does an eagle learn to look at storms as an opportunity and not an obstacle? It starts early in their life. As part of the Old Testament law, Moses wrote “Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching, bearing them on its pinions, the LORD alone guided him, no foreign god was with him” Deuteronomy 32:11-12. Moses is speaking to the nation of Israel about how God has prepared them to be a nation devoted to the LORD. However, the message can be for us as well. God prepares us like a mother eagle prepares her eaglets.
An eagle’s nest is large, well built, and strong. It is lined with the feathers of the mother bird and is very comfortable place for baby eagles. However, there comes a time when the mother bird starts to hover over the nest and flap her wings. She starts to dislodge all those soft feathers and the bits of twigs and branches start poking through. As a result, the nest is not as comfortable as it once was. Then she takes the little birds and drops them out of the nest one at a time. She will fly down with the baby bird and swoop under them with those huge outstretched wings. The baby bird will clamp down with its talons on the mother’s wing and the mother eagle will lift her baby bird back up to the nest. This process is repeated until the baby bird learns it can fly like momma. Then they begin to fly together and learn about updrafts and how to soar. It is only by making the nest uncomfortable and pushing the young eagles out of the nest that the mother can teach them how to soar.
Isaiah is not surprised by the existence of exhausting and draining times, in fact he says, even the young and strong cannot endure such times in their own strength. The secret he points out is not to get stronger, but to learn how to lean on the LORD in the difficult times. In the hard times of life God is with us, He flies beside us and will not let us fall. However, the LORD also repeats the difficult lessons of life until we learn how to fly by faith. The more we learn about living by faith, the less threatening the storms become. We learn more about the difficult times being an opportunity for our faith to shine than we would ever learn in our comfy nests. We may go faster and farther in difficult times than we ever would in comfortable times. But the secret is; we are not drawing from our strength, we are soaring on the strength the LORD provides.
Maybe this is a season where your once comfortable nest and is now a little uncomfortable. Maybe the LORD is lifting you out of the nest and teaching you how the storms are the up currents that allow you to soar. What lesson is God teaching you right now that will not weary you, but lift you up so you can soar with wings like eagles?