Some years ago I remember a story being told by Chuck Swindoll about a bird, a small bird in a cage. This bird was all cleaned up, fluffed up in fact, set in his/her cage for safe keeping yet it had lost it's song! I heard this story and I must admit I identified with the poor thing. The point of the analogy was the likened experience to one's life by religion. I was there. The fluffy little cleaned up bird, but boxed in and without a song. It is amazing how God has enabled us to sometimes relate our own human experience with those from His extended creation.
There was an undoing in my life. The past had indeed gone. I was a new creation. However, in and through the process somehow I had evaded the essence of who I really am in Christ.
It had to have been six or seven years ago that I recall hearing that story and feeling the "spin cycle" and high dry setting of religion in my own life. More recently I have equated myself again to the bird species as a broken small bird, crushed, lame, unable to see, wounded, hindered and scarred. However in this likened image there was another greater one present. God Himself was seen as my covering. One who kept me in the shadow of His wings. I did not realize that in describing my experience in such form I was really saying. I am not healed, whole or able to fly on my own. There was a lot of vulnerability in this description or myself. In trying to recover, I suppose from the fluff of religion, I had taken on the "martyr" approach to life.
This would be termed years of pride with false humility in keeping with the vulnerability of one's life having taken on the form of one who is incapable apart from God. While it is true we cannot do anything of value apart from Christ … as in the supernatural, miraculous, or gifted callings we may possess; we are still called sons and daughters of God for a reason. We do have the ability to overcome, to walk, to uphold and protect, to stand firm and eventually without hesitation to soar by faith to new heights.
As I have continued on my journey to "becoming" here is where I am now or at least where I believe to be. As of lately, God has challenged my personal faith to which we have each been given a measure. Pray that the Lord increases your measure of faith! I have learned to step out in obedience. I have learned and am learning to wait on the Lord. In waiting, praying and being still, I have heard the Lord. Grown to know His true voice speaking through the depths of my spirit. Proverbs 3:5-6 says this, Do not trust in your own thinking or ability to reason, Know that God is in control and can be trusted. Pray and earnestly seek Him in all things and the result will be clear direction for you to follow and walk therein.
While in this process of waiting, I could have never suspected the metamorphic new thing God was creating inside of me. Isaiah 40:31 says, that if we will patiently wait on God and His timing because He does all things in order and has purpose to perfect for eternity. We will have our physical strength and spiritual frame renewed and refurbished. We will run and be hastened on to go further, we will walk and not stumble or look to the left or the right, we will ultimately take off and soar on wings that surprisingly enough have developed throughout the entire process of learning to wait on God! Mount up it says with eagle's wings. Not on them or under them but with our own wings as an eagle.
The source then becomes the wind beneath, which we know to be the supernatural Holy Spirit of the living God who gives us the power to overcome, to achieve, to dream and to soar.
This is a transforming picture and amazes me the evolution in the Spirit we undergo in our process of "becoming." As an eagle, we can fly high above circumstances. There is no more playing the victim. There is not enough time to continue to revisit those wounds past tense. They have aided in God's process to make me what I have become. My resting place becomes one in the high places of the clefts of God's presence. This is where I am fed and find my purpose. This is where we experience the glory of God. The eagle has learned to rest in the moving of the almighty. He/she says as Jesus did, I do whatever the Father says or does. That is also what I do. It is my food, or sustenance to seek out and to do the will of my Father. This is when you know you are basing your life more in the supernatural than the natural. More in your God than your own abilities.
Hebrews 11, the great faith chapter says it is impossible to please God without faith. But we try to impress don't we? I mean we eagerly and desperately desire a religion we can control. A way of being a Christ follower that keeps us neatly in our comfort zone. The cage! And for heaven's sake! Don't ruffle my feathers!
Or maybe you are where I was just several years ago. The small broken bird. Feeling the sting of life and all that has happened to you, all you have been through or that which has resulted from your own sin and lack of faith. Self evaluation is so key to spiritual growth. Jesus taught it, encouraged it and put this process in many different parables for us to follow. The apostle Paul came right out and said under divine inspiration plainly...examine yourself to see if you are in the faith?!
The Lord spoke to me from that verse in Isaiah chapter 40 not too many weeks ago and allowed me to see myself as this eagle. This has been one of the most significant milestones for me in my entire spiritual journey. To see myself as not just a follower, friend or servant but as a daughter of the most high God. I am more excited about the future than ever before in my life. The clefts of intimacy with my Father God have become my place of rest. I have a longing simply to love Him more and to do His perfect will.
What should matter most in our life is obedience to God through faith, vision, and the patience to lay hold of all we have through Jesus Christ.
Father give us a trust that hangs onto hope through periods of not seeing the manifestation of that which you have ordained. This is the very faith that holds together the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is by grace you have been saved through faith … certainly not that any of us should brag on what we have done but only that which God has accomplished, Ephesians 2:9-10. The beauty of soaring with His strength, in His will and for His glory. This is not just my destiny but the destiny of every true follower of Jesus Christ. We are joint heirs with Christ and adopted sons and daughters belonging to God. He knows where to lead you, how to feed you and what is up ahead.
Jeremiah 29:11, the overall plan and working out for your life is not going to be evil, but good. Do not give up hope for it comes from God. Do not fear the future for God knows the end from the beginning and all things are under His sovereign control and will work for your good.
Romans 8:28-29, there is not even one thing the Lord will not work for your good, and for a divine purpose at which the core is to bless you. Keep growing in love for Him and seeking to do his will and fulfill your calling. So that you may walk as a son or daughter of God resembling Christ in all that you say and do on this earth.
