Soaring with Eagles

As a teenager growing up in Seward, Alaska, I lived at the foot of 3,000-foot Mt. Marathon. Every Fourth of July the town hosted a race from the center of town up that mountain and back. People came from all over the world to compete.

Seward, Alaska, at the foot of Mt. Marathon

Several times I too climbed to the top of that mountain. Not in the race, though! My legs ached, and my lungs screamed for air, but what a vista awaited at the top!

Have you ever noticed that towns are not usually built at the top of mountains? I couldn't stay up there and be of any use to anyone else. I had to go back down to my town.

That mountaintop experience, however, gave me a grand perspective of the setting in which I lived. From sea level, I couldn't see all the mountains that unfolded behind Mt. Marathon and all the ice fields and waterways beyond. My town was only a small part of my very big state.

Ephesians 2:6 tells us that God has saved us by His grace and raised us up with Christ to sit with Him in heavenly places. Why? To give us a bird's eye view of His glorious eternal plans for us and all humankind.

But He doesn't want us to stay on the mountaintop yet. He has work for us to do here. He sends us back down from the mountaintop experience to walk among people to show them the great mercy and grace of God.

Many Christians are like chickens, pecking around in the dirt and never using their wings to rise above the storms of life to gain perspective and renewal of strength. God wants His children to soar like eagles.

Soaring is not hard work. Eagles simply set their wings and allow the very winds that bring the storms to carry them along above the fray.

God wants us to soar with Him and see life from His perspective. Only after we have been refreshed by His Holy Spirit can we come down and run life's race without growing weary and walk among people and not faint.

Are you more like a chicken or an eagle? How can you soar with God and be refreshed spiritually today?


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