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 40:31 NAS

I was sitting in the classroom for six-year olds, visiting with a friend who was preparing her lesson for Sunday. There was a large picture of an eagle at the front of the room so I said, “You’re teaching about the eagle, I see.” “Oh yes, Anabel, and this is such a wonderful lesson! Let me tell you what I’ve learned! I don’t know who researched all of these facts, but they are inspired!”

She proceeded to share what she was going to be teaching and I have never forgotten her stories about the majestic eagle. For example, did you know that eagles can fly 6000′ above the earth’s surface and stay there for some time? And the point she made was this: The eagle that soars in the upper air does not need to worry about how to cross rivers or climb mountains! Isn’t that beautiful? She went on, “No bird is so solitary as the eagle. Eagles never fly in flocks, as geese do, one or at most two ever being seen at once.” And here’s another amazing fact: The eagle will sit on a crag and watch the sky as it is filling with blackness, and the forked lightnings are playing up and down, and he sits perfectly still, turning one eye and then the other toward the storm. But he never moves until he feels the burst of the wind and knows the storm has struck him, then with a scream, he swings his breast into the tempest, and uses the storm to go up into the sky-borne on the torrential winds.”

I’m confident you have already seen what I began pondering after that day in the classroom. God is looking for “eagle-men” and he tells me that He is working on me, that He has given me the wings of the eagle, that my youth will be renewed like the eagle.

Picture all of those analogies, like the one about not having to worry about how to cross rivers or scale mountains. I can stand on the bank and be terrified of the murky, turbulent, raging water wondering how will I ever be able to get across-or I can look up at the towering mountain and think, “I’ll never, ever be able to make it over this barrier.” But, if I “fly high” with the Lord, allowing Him to lift me above the circumstances that come into my life (rivers and mountains), then I won’t be frantic, worrying about how to get across that swirling water or conquer the mountain peaks-I look down on them and see them from His perspective! I will glide! Don’t you love to watch an eagle just spread his wings and float? That can be me!

Think about how the eagle faces the hurricane. He throws himself into the midst of the storm letting the fierce gale carry him above the tempest. He meets it head-on and conquers it instead of being a ‘victim’ swept away by the tumultuous winds. Oh! To face the storms that come into my life with such courage! If we “mount up with wings like eagles” we will not be devastated by the storm. We will use the storm to carry us higher and higher into the realms where God lives. Yes, Lord, yes!

Then living a solitary life. Not everyone will believe that we have been given “eagle wings”- that He has created “eagle men” and they will turn away, disillusioned-we are left alone. Then is when we must be content with Christ only for when we fly as an eagle does into the higher levels where cloudless day abides, we will live a comparatively lonely life.

I want to be an “eagle man.”