Chicken or Eagle
Posted: September 26, 2008
Life seems stormy these days. Gas prices soaring out of sight-elections-divorces-house prices too high-depression-fatigue-hurricane Ike-too much information-too little time. Lately I seem to be standing in the middle of storms where I feel shaken and know I need to hang onto something strong so that I won’t be swept away. I have to make myself stop, breathe and remember what I am hanging onto. Then I remember the story of the chicken and the eagle.
The research done by Joyce Meyers (a well known international speaker and Bible teacher) on eagles fascinates me. She tells the eagle story this way:
When a storm comes, chickens run around madly flapping their wings, squawking, going in circles, digging in the same old dirt and going nowhere. The eagle is different. When it sees a storm coming, it sits on a rock and waits. When the storm comes it rises up to “catch the wind” so that it will take the eagle to higher heights – soaring on the strength of the wind. In fact, the eagle uses the storms to lift it higher than it would normally go.
I grip onto that story because I also want to sit on something solid and soar above my present “shaken circumstances.” The bible uses the analogy of the rock as God and Jesus Christ in several places. In Psalm 62:2 it says, “Yes, he alone is my Rock, my rescuer, defense and fortress. Why then should I be tense with fear when troubles come?”
What does it mean that Jesus is the rock that I can rest on? For me it means that I need to stop and remember that I can trust God for all His promises that He will be with me in all my storms; that He will protect me no matter what; that He has a purposeful plan for my future; and that if I wait and hang on, He will take me beyond my present storm in a better place. That He will open doors that I could not open myself and that He will make me stronger and more resilient. But while I am hanging onto the rock, Jesus Christ, I have to believe that He is with me IN the storm.
If you are in the middle of a storm, please stop with me right now. Breathe in the word of God which promises this: “Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary” (Isaiah 40:32 NASB).
Breathe out new hope, with a determination to hang onto the rock until the storm passes.
Lovingly…Heidi
