ELI M. BORDEN, PhD
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Christians can soar above
life’s perils A farmer one day was backpacking through a forest when he came across a young eagle; he brought the eaglet home and put it with his chickens in a fenced enclosure. He gave it chicken food to eat just like the other fowls in the pen. After a short time, the eagle had the hardware to fly from his prison, but for five years it stayed right where it was, pecking for corn just like the chickens. One day a naturalist came to visit; he spotted the eagle and exclaimed, “That bird is an eagle, not a chicken." The farmer agreed, but added, “Its wings may measure fifteen feet from tip to tip, but this bird has the heart of a chicken, and it will always be a chicken.” The visitor was certain the eagle would fly, so he claimed, “It is still an eagle, and I guarantee it will use its eagle wings to soar high in the heavens.” The challenge was on, so the visitor picked up the eagle and said, “You are an eagle, and you belong not to the earth but to the sky, so stretch forth your mighty wings and fly.” He then tossed the bird into the air, but the eagle turned this way and that, and then looking down, saw the chickens eating their food, and down he came. The farmer laughed and said, “You lose; I told you it was a chicken.” Refusing to give up, the visitor said, “I just chose the wrong method; I still guarantee that this bird will fly like other eagles.” The next day the visitor was ready with a new strategy; he picked up the eagle, climbed a ladder to the top of the house, and said, "You are an eagle, and you belong not to the earth but to the sky, so stretch forth your mighty wings and fly." He pitched the bird into the air, and the eagle made a feeble attempt to flap its wings, but once more, seeing the chickens feeding, it dropped to the ground and fed with them. Once more the farmer chortled, “I told you it was a chicken.” “I believe the bird can and will fly,” said his friend, “I want one more chance early in the morning.” The next morning, the two men took the eagle and rode away from the chicken pen to the foot of a high mountain just as the sun was rising with all its grandeur. The man held the eagle at the edge of a cliff and said, "You are an eagle, and you belong not to the earth but to the sky, so stretch forth your mighty wings and fly." The eagle looked around and trembled as if new life were coming to it, but it made no attempt to fly. The man turned to force the eagle to look into the sun, and he was thrilled when the eagle stretched out its wings and cut loose with the screech of an eagle. He dropped the eagle over the edge of the cliff, and it began to flap its wings until it soared in the heavens. The prophet Isaiah sounds a little like the man who believed in the eagle: “Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:31). When Christians find themselves acting like the world around them, perhaps it is because they have spent too much time in the chicken pen, observing chicken behavior and eating chicken food. When we look toward the Son, we remember that God gave us His Spirit, and that God gives us wings to soar above the chicken pens of life.
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