are you Chicken or Eagle?

By Bill Bright, Crosswalk.com


They will fly high on wings like eagles (Isaiah 40:31, NLT).

Dear Friends,

God wants His people to "mount up with wings as eagles" (Isaiah 40:31). Unfortunately, too many Christians live as chickens.

The following interesting story is quoted in the Multnomah Message, Spring, 1993:

While walking through the forest one day, a man found a young eagle which had fallen out of his nest. He took it home and put it in his barnyard where it soon learned to eat and behave like the chickens. One day a naturalist passed by the farm and asked why it was that the king of all birds should be confined to live in the barnyard with the chickens. The farmer replied that since he had trained it to be a chicken, it had never learned to fly. The eagle thought it was a chicken.

"Still it has the heart of an eagle," replied the naturalist, "and can surely be taught to fly." He lifted the eagle toward the sky and said, "You belong to the sky and not to the earth. Stretch forth your wings and fly."

The eagle, however, was confused. He did not know who he was, and seeing the chickens eating their food, he jumped down to be with them again.

The naturalist took the bird to the roof of the house and urged him again, saying, "You are an eagle. Stretch forth your wings and fly."

But the eagle was afraid of his unknown self and world and jumped down once more for the chicken food. Finally the naturalist took the eagle out of the barnyard to a high mountain. There he held the king of the birds high above him and encouraged him again, saying, "You are an eagle. You belong to the sky. Stretch forth your wings and fly."

The eagle looked around, back towards the barnyard and up to the sky. Then the naturalist lifted him straight towards the sun and it happened that the eagle began to tremble. Slowly he stretched his wings, and with a triumphant cry, soared away into the heavens, never to return to the barnyard.

May God help us to see the Son on high, better understand the eagles He wants us to be in His strength, and may we never return to the life of a spiritual chicken.