ON EAGLE'S WINGS

ON THE WINGS OF EAGLES

                It was early in the predawn hour yesterday morning and I was running the drill press in my brother-in-law’s shop. I often help him with production and so, in the silence of early morning and drowning in the steady sound of the drill press, I was talking to the Lord… well… complaining a bit I guess.

                I was complaining at the daunting task He has given us of moving across country and into the great unknown with nothing more than words He spoke into our spirits. I told Him; it seems that we are having to make major life decisions on what often feels like thin air and dreams.

                A case in point is that Bonnie and I had found the house of our dreams in Tennessee. I went through it when I was out visiting the boys. It was overlooking a beautiful lake on 5 acres of mostly wooded land. It was beautiful. So we put in a bid on it and waited for a reply. But the night before our answer, God gave me a terrifying dream in which He warned us not to buy that house.

                I said, “Okay Lord, but we are in the middle of this deal and I refuse to put those people back there in a bad way. Nevertheless if we are understanding this dream rightly then I will count on You to cause some sort of snafu to happen in the process that gives us a chance to back out gracefully. Well, the next day, the people called us twice telling us they were not ready to make a decision. So this was the break we had been waiting for since they were already 2 days over the allotted 14 day time limit. We withdrew our offer and thanked God for intervening.

                Not ten minutes later, the people accepted our offer, but it was too late. So based on a dream we lost the deal on the house and the timing was so precise that if we had hesitated even by 10 minutes it would have been too late. So I have no doubt that the Lord has something better waiting for us back there. We are both disappointed. We loved that house and its beautiful location next to the lake. We hated to let it go, but we couldn’t rationalize our way around that explicit dream. I’m sure that in time we will come to understand God’s reasons.

                But I was complaining to the Lord because I don’t like living on a wing and a prayer and all of this is very hard on us. We are being yanked away from our wonderful friends and sent to do who knows what after having been faithful and obedient to what God had led us to do here. But why? And why is His leading so tenuous. Does He really expect us to make all of these decisions based, not on an audible voice in our ear, but a silent voice in our spirit? We get that we are to be parents and grandparents to our children and grandchildren and we are looking forward to that with eager anticipation

                Well… I talk to the Lord about everything and He doesn’t often give me a straight answer in a yes or no sort of way, but He begins to teach me in ways that I can apply to the situation. And so it was that after I had finally unloaded on Him there in the dark morning hours, He began to teach me from His Word. He directed me to John 3 and His statement to Nicodemus about being born again. He said to me, “People often shelter themselves from the full meaning of My Word either because aren’t ready to enter into that realm, or because they are spiritually blind to it by reason of immaturity. He told me to pay close attention to verses 7, 8, and 9 so I mentally brought those lines up and began to think about them.

                “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.” The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; SO IS EVERYONE WHO IS BORN OF THE SPIRIT.”

                Wait a minute… whaaaat? How could we miss that? “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going.” Okay, fine…we got that. We can’t see the wind, but we can see the trees swaying and so we know the wind is blowing and what direction it is coming from, but it is that next line that we miss when Jesus said, “SO IS EVERYONE WHO IS BORN OF THE SPIRIT.”

                In other words, every one that is born again must somehow learn to go with the wind of the Spirit and as such, those who are not in the Spirit may see them move, but they will have no idea why. Here Jesus is asking us to begin to walk after the Spirit… the invisible… a voice that is only heard by the new creation man…the new spirit He created in us when we were born gain.

                And so, the thing I have been harping on for a couple of years now makes a sharp turn into a new nail- biting reality: “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” Romans 8:14. O me, O my. We have just made a quantum leap from theoretical faith and into practical faith. Without action, faith is dead.  James 2:17 “Without faith it is impossible to please God. Those that come to God must believe that He is and that He is the rewarder of those that diligently seek Him. Hebrews 11:6…”Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval.” Heb. 11:1, 2.

                Somebody turn off the machine gun already. The Bible is full of texts about faith, but we often leave faith in the doctrinal or theoretical realms rather than making it the stuff by which actions are taken.

                I find myself asking God if this is the way the men of old perceived His voice. They seemed so certain about it… and it wasn’t as though God was giving them a call to Hawaii. Most of His prophets met with horrible deaths for saying what God gave them to say. God doesn’t often call us into our comfort zone… He usually calls us out of it… but He wasn’t done teaching me yet. Instead He drew my attention to Isaiah 40:31

                “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not grow weary; they shall run and not faint.”

                The Lord said to me, “Over the past few years you and Bonnie have waited upon me… not as one waits on his couch, but you have waited upon me as a waiter of tables. You have run and not grown weary and you have walked without fainting, but now it is time to mount up with wings as eagles.”

                That is a very famous and popular text and everyone likes to fancy themselves as mountain up on wings of faith as they read My Word. But that too can be either theoretical or practical. What does it mean to mount up with wings as eagles?

                Think about it from a practical standpoint. The eagle has to place his full weight and trust, his life to something he can’t see. Not only that, but he must reach a certain level of maturity before he can spread his wings and cleave to the air. If his wing muscles are weak, his wings too small   or his feathers not fully formed he will not be able to fly.

                That is why we must learn to run and not grow weary, to walk and not faint first and then eventually graduate to mounting up on wings as eagles. To understand life correctly, we must understand something: When we enter into the disciplines of the Lord, then everything, good and bad, is a part of our training to reign.

                This is what is so devastating about the prosperity Gospel. It focuses on the here and now… on material riches… on mammon. It stunts our vision and blocks our view of eternal things. We forget that we are pilgrims here… strangers in search of a city whose Builder and Maker is God. We find a place of comfort and we settle in. We plod along with no further view to mounting up on wings as eagles.

                When it comes to faith, Hebrews 11:2 tells us that by this faith, men of old gained approval. And where are these men of faith now? Are they just dead, gone and forgotten? Not according to Hebrews 12:1. It says:

                Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and finisher of faith who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:1, 2.

                You may say, “Oh now Rick, you are treading on dangerous ground trying to tell us that we are literally surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses, but I ask you this. Who was it that was raised with Jesus at the time of His resurrection? And why do you suppose Joseph wanted his bones hauled from Egypt to the Promised Land? They knew things back then that we don’t seem to know today.

                Jesus Himself verified what I am saying here in Matthew 22:31, 32 saying: But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken to you by God saying, “I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead but of the living.”

                Matthew 27:52, 53 says: “…and the tombs were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many.” And Paul follows up on this in Ephesians 4: 8 saying: “Therefore it says, When He ascended on high He led captive a host of captives and He gave gifts to men.”

                Friends, we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses and they are cheering us on to the finish line, for as Hebrews 11:40 says:  ”… because God had provided something better for us so that apart from us they should not be made perfect.” In other words, the baton has been passed to us and we are the generation to carry it to the finish line. IT is not for us to maintain the status quo, but to mount up on eagle’s wings… to place our full weight and our very lives upon that which we cannot see… to gain the perspective of the eagle… to see the big picture and thus understand.

                For Bonnie and me it would be easier to fall back at this point… to lose faith…to question what God is doing with us… but as Hebrews 10:39 says: “But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.” And believe me… that is much easier said than done.

                We are not all called to move across the country. We are not all called to Africa, India or Pakistan… but we are all called to faith and whether we run, walk or fly, we must do it by faith in that which we cannot see.