Learning to Fly
Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel: “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my just claim is passed over by my God”? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. – Isaiah 40:27-31.
When I was a boy a neighbor gave me a crow that was only a few weeks old. The baby crow only knew how to walk around and so when I thought he was old enough I decided that I would teach him how to fly. Using a ladder I climbed onto the roof of our house with the crow and then dropped him off the roof. He flapped his wings and landed softly. I climbed down and then climbed back up with the crow and dropped him off again. Again he flapped his wings and landed softly. I repeated the process several times until finally instead of landing he continued to flap his wings and flew over to a tree. He now knew how to fly.
The process for a mother eagle to teach her eaglets to fly is similar. With a nest high on the side of a mountain, the eaglet is pushed out and the natural response is for the wings to begin to move, to flap. Of course, eagles avoid flapping those wings any more than necessary. Eagles soar effortlessly on the currents of wind and that is the kind of flying that Isaiah has in mind and that the Lord will enable us to do.
How does God teach His children how to fly? A few years after I was married in a one year period I was laid off from three different jobs. After the third time, with a lot of time on my hands, I began to read through the New Testament for the first time and talk with God more than I ever had before. It took a push from God for me to begin the learning process. With God’s help, I made a crucial decision that led to more right decisions in the future. Ten years down the road I quit a job and borrowed $30,000 to start an oilfield pipe inspection business. It took a month to build the inspection unit, and then I began to try to find some jobs but after a month more I still had not had any business. My financial situation was looking very bleak, since even if I did succeed in finding some work it sometimes would take three months before receiving payment. However, I knew what to do. I had faced bad times, and difficult situations before. What did I do? I prayed…and God did the rest.
Learning to trust God is difficult for most people. Getting dropped off of a roof was probably scary for my crow. Getting nudged out of a nest on the side of a mountain by your mother must be unbelievably frightening but how else does an eagle learn how to fly? If you have been pushed out of your nest, or dropped off of the roof, and you are in freefall – here’s some advice: start flapping your wings! Read, memorize, and meditate upon God’s Word. Pray like your life depends on it because it probably does. If you are not in church, you need to be. If you are not serving God, you ought to be. If you flap your wings hard enough you may eventually gain some altitude and begin to soar. “…those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
(Learning to fly can be a frightening process, however, there are no shortcuts.)