Learning From The Eagle 3 of 4

 

Welcome once again to MemCare by Radio. I’m Scott Hollinger and I’m glad you are allowing us to spend some time with you today. We’re continuing our series, Learning from the Eagle. As always we bring life lessons with a special emphasis on promoting perspective and values in relationships. 

 

In the series Learning from the Eagle we have already heard how the King of the Birds builds its nest in the highest places and cares for its brood with diligence until they are able to stand on their own two feet. We also learned how the mother eagle forces them out of the nest and teaches them to fly by letting them fall from great heights. We learned that as they start testing their little wings in this horrendous freefall, the father eagle is there to catch them before they hit the rocks below. God compares Himself to the eagle and invites us, through His Word, to trust Him even when He deals with us in harshness. Our theme verse from the prophet Isaiah encourages us to trust when we read, “…but 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.” (Isa. 40:31)

 

Now let’s welcome Edmund Spieker for another lesson on Learning from the Eagle.

 

Thank you, Scott. What a privilege to continue this challenging series. As with all truth of God’s Word, the Bible should never be seen and read just as a theory or theology, but rather become experiential truth. I personally testify to the fact that God treats His children sometimes with unexpected harshness through trials and suffering. He doesn’t change the laws of nature or circumstances just because we would like to. Rather He is with those who love Him and makes all things work for His purpose and for their good in the end. 

 

It is important for us to keep in mind that God’s purposes are based on His divine nature and are holy and eternal. They are not just a capricious, impetuous, chutzpah decision of an impersonal deity out there in space. No, the God of the Bible is a personal God who created us to reflect His nature.  As God has created the eagle by design, He also has created each of us with a purpose, namely to reflect Him.  

 

The Bible states that as we believe in Jesus and that God has raised Him from the dead, we become children of God. We are born again! And to His children God declares, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”(Jer. 29:11)

 

Let’s keep this in mind as we continue to study the life of the eagle.

 

An eagle can live up to 120 years. But when it is about 60 years old it goes through a mid-life crisis, or a molting process.  At this time the eagle comes down and hides in the valley while it sheds off part of its feathers and loses the horn of its sharp beak and claws. Because of a change of chemicals in its body it stays in the dark as if depressed and has a hard time to keeping alive just by feeding itself with the worms or other food it can scratch together.

 

This process of molting is vital for the eagle to live another productive life span.

 

Edmund, I think of the mid-life crisis people go through. For women it’s called menopause and for men it is the midlife crisis. That’s the time when they move into a new age group, the hormones in their body change and they experience for the first time a certain loss of physical strength. That normally is a time when people become rather unsettled and even panicky in relation to their accomplishments and outlook in life.

 

Yes, this is comparable to what happens to the eagle and here are some tremendous lessons for us. The eagle actually cooperates with the process and rips out the damaged feathers and while scratching for food like a chicken, gets rid of the used up claws. 

 

That must be a painful process!

 

No doubt it is. Quite frankly, as we apply the lesson for us, each honest self-evaluation or life revision can be brutal and painful. I have gone through the time where God put me under scrutiny and pointed out the feathers in my life that were useless in His service because they were damaged through wear and tear, others, but also by my own pride and selfishness.

 

Actually at one point He had to take away my position of leadership and power to control and influence others, in order to reveal to me how I needed a spiritual renewal and find in Him alone my sufficiency. 

 

In this time of helplessness when my false securities and trust in people and myself were shaken, God was able to touch me on the deepest level of my soul.  There was the need to confess, to ask forgiveness, and to allow Him to renew my vision and to give me a new calling.  

 

Actually these times of spiritual molting, as I call it, became the beginning for a new and more intimate relationship with God in my life and the start for a new ministry as well.

 

Its very encouraging for me to think that as God plans for the eagle to live a full and productive life and makes it go through the molting process, so He provides for His children times of crisis and life revision in order to lead them to change and to provide for the needed renewal.

 

Yes, in the end it’s all because of His loving care for us.

 

Here is one more beautiful lesson we can learn from the eagle. While the eagle is alone in the valley, bleeding because it ripped out the damaged feathers, hurting because of the loss of the used-up horn in its beak and claws, and weak, depressed and losing weight,…one day it hears familiar voices. 

 

The other eagles have finally spotted it. Their coming brings encouragement and they bring little pieces of meat which they throw down. This is the beginning of the process of recovery.  Soon the eagle will be ready to leave the valley with renewed strength, new feathers, beak and claws and equipped for a new chapter of its life in the sky.

 

Wow! That is an incredibly difficult process of transformation for the eagle! I can see it is also a lesson of hope as we accept the need for renewal in our own lives.

 

Dear friend, if God spoke to your heart today as He did to mine, make yours the prayer of King David in Psalm 51, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.”