soaring on wings like eagles

Watching eagles soaring high above never gets old.

​It doesn't happen every day, of course. But with surprising frequency I can stand in my yard and watch eagles circling in the sky. In those moments, words fail. All I can do is marvel at these regal creatures.

Invariably, I also think of these words from the prophet Isaiah:

Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
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.

Isaiah 40:28-31

I was part of the cross country team when I was in high school. We were proud to be the Eastern High School Eagles. Predictably, the church kids on the team latched on to the image found in Isaiah 40:28-31, and we took great joy in the possibility of soaring on wings like eagles and running without getting weary. I'm not sure that keeping Isaiah's words in mind helped us run faster, but simply carrying around that image of soaring eagles was a huge encouragement to us.

Frankly, I'm not doing much soaring these days. Instead, I'm surviving, hanging in there, muddling through, taking baby steps, barely making it to the next day. But not much soaring is happening right now in my life.

Even so, every once in a while, that image of eagles seizes my imagination. And I am lifted up to a new and different place. Suddenly, hope appears. In that moment, I realize that I am meant to fly.

If you wonder what exactly that means, take a few minutes and listen to this.

​And consider the possibility . . . that you were created to fly!