LEARNING HOW TO FLY?
Deut 32:9-12 For the LORD’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance. In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye, 11 like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions. 12 The LORD alone led him; no foreign god was with him.
Once upon a time there was a little mouse. The little mouse lived in great fear all the time. This fear dictated the mouse¡¦s life. He was afraid of his own shadow. He feared what might happen to him. The mouse could not learn that fear was doubt. The little mouse¡¦s fear made mountains out of molehills. Because of his fear he was very suspicious and weary of life. The little mouse wished he could be a cat, then he would not have to be afraid. One lucky day the mouse met a powerful magician. The mouse was amazed to watch the magician work. The mouse went up to the magician in great fear and asked. Please, Mr. Magician, I am so afraid, if I were a cat I would not have to fear. Could you please make me into a CAT? The magician said sure, Abra-ca-dab-bra --- and the little fearful mouse turned into a cat. The mouse, now turned cat, saw a dog and the dog caused great fear. Later, the mouse turned cat saw the magician again and said, I am so afraid, could you please turn me into a dog. I will be OK if I could just be a dog. So the magician said, Abra-ca-dab-bra, you are now a dog. The new dog was so proud. As the new dog ran through the woods, he heard a lion roar and in a geat panic, fear caused the mouse turned cat turned dog to run. The dog was shaking in fear, he knew if he could just be a lion everything would be different. The dog kept looking for the magician to add his new request, for he knew if he could become a lion he would have no fear. Finally the dog found the magician. The dog barked to the magician, please, please can you make me a lion? If I were a lion everything would be fine. The magician said, Abra-ca-dab-bra, I turn you back into a mouse. You have a mouse¡¦s heart. I could change you into anything, but you have a mouse¡¦s heart and all you will ever be is a mouse. You must learn to be satisfied. You didn¡¦t like being a mouse. You didn¡¦t like being a cat. You didn¡¦t like being a dog. You will not like being a lion. You are a mouse at heart. Abra-ca-dab-bra, be what your heart is. And the dog turn back into a mouse.
„X God takes care of His people, and though we don¡¦t always see it in such striking and noticeable ways, the Bible promises that He will take care of those who are His.
„X God¡¦s care is like the eagle caring for her young.
„X "Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that hovers over its young, He spread His wings to catch them and carries them on His pinions."
What a beautiful picture of how God deals with his people: a mother eagle training her young to fly.
I. The Demonstration Stage
a. The mother eagle will frequently push off from the perch where the nest is and hover above her young.
b. In response, the eaglets begin to flap their wings wildly in imitation.
i. At this stage the eaglets don¡¦t have enough feathers to fly, but they begin to develop their wing muscles.
ii. The key word here is demonstration.
c. What a great picture to describe what God has done for us through Jesus!
i. Jesus demonstrated the kind of faith and life we should be leading.
ii. A child quits crawling and learns to walk by watching adults walk around him.
iii. Romans 5:8 "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
iv. 1 Timothy 1:16 "And yet for this reason I found mercy, in order that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience, as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life."
v. God hasn¡¦t left us to figure things out on our own.
vi. Remember when Jesus said, "If you¡¦ve seen Me, you¡¦ve seen the Father?"
vii. Jesus is the perfect example of how we should live the life of faith.
d. I wonder if we¡¦ve spend as much time as we should getting to know Jesus?
i. 2 Timothy 2:8, "Remember Jesus..."
A young man had been promoted to an important position in his company. He’d never dreamed he’d be in such a position, much less at such a young age. So he went to see the venerable old timer in the company, and said, "Sir, I was wondering if you could give me some ADVICE." The old timer came back with just two words: "Right decisions!" The young man had hoped for a bit more than this, so he said, "Thank you, that’s really helpful, and I appreciate it, but could you be a little more SPECIFIC? HOW do I make right decisions?"
The old man responded: "Experience." The young man said, "Well, that’s just the point of my being here. I don’t have the kind of experience I need. How do I GET it?" The old man replied: "WRONG decisions!"
II. The Discomfort Stage
a. "Like an eagle that stirs up its nest..."
The mother eagle teaches her little ones to fly by making their nest so uncomfortable that they are forced to leave it and commit themselves to the unknown world of air outside. And just so does our God to us. He stirs up our comfortable nests, and pushes us over the edge of them, and we are forced to use our wings to save ourselves from fatal falling. Read your trials in this light, and see if you cannot begin to get a glimpse of their meaning. Your wings are being developed. -- Hannah Whitall Smith
It¡¦s one thing for those young eagles to flap their wings in the security of their down-filled home. It¡¦s quite another for them to move to the edge, look over, and imagine stepping out on nothing!
i. Naturally, they don¡¦t want to do it.
ii. The adult eagle begins "stirring up" the nest! She actually begins to poke through the bottom and tear the nest apart.
iii. The young eagles are literally forced to fly.
b. What often happens to us at this stage of God¡¦s teaching the faith-life is that we begin to be bothered about something.
i. Like Job in Job 30:27, we might say, "My heart is troubled and restless..."
ii. It can be about anything that is bothering us.
1. A relationship.
2. An unfulfilled dream.
3. A stress in our lives.
4. A fear.
5. A weakness.
6. An indulgence.
iii. We find ourselves thinking, "One of these days I¡¦m going to have to start working on that."
iv. This is God stirring up our nest.
v. He wants us to face something we¡¦ve not faced before, so He makes us uncomfortable.
c. You know, the sad thing is that some people live their entire lives in this stage.
i. They cling to their nest like terrified eaglets, afraid to do anything about their problem.
ii. They¡¦d rather live with discomfort than risk flying.
III. The Danger Stage
a. A WILD BOAR stood under a tree and rubbed his tusks against the trunk. A Fox passing by asked him why he thus sharpened his tusks when there was no danger threatening from either huntsman or hound. He replied, "I do it advisedly; for it would never do to have to sharpen my weapons just at the time I ought to be using them."
b. Eventually, in the case of eagles, the mother eagle gets all the kids out of the nest.
c. Have you ever seen a full-grown eagle still perched in the nest of its parents, peeping like a baby for them to bring him something to eat? No, you haven¡¦t, because one way or the other, he gets booted out of the nest with nothing between he and the hard ground but air. He either learns to fly or falls until his mother rescues him.
d. God often allows a danger or a crisis to come into our lives that moves the issue we¡¦re ignoring off the back burner.
e. It happened to King David.
i. Psalm 119:67, "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Thy word."
ii. It took a crisis of affliction to show David the need to learn to keep God¡¦s word.
f. Remember, God wants you to fly, not flutter in the nest. He wants you to grow up!
IV. The Decision Stage
a. The nature of danger or a crisis is that it forces us out of the nest.
b. We have to decide,
i. "Am I going to move ahead or am I going to retreat? Am I going to face this or try to run away?
c. We are products of our choices.
i. With the nest suddenly gone out from under him and the ground coming up fast, the young eagle has a choice to make. He realizes, "I¡¦ve gotta do something - Now!" So he chooses to fly or fall - to soar or smash on the rocks below - literally, to live or die.
There is a story about a man who had a huge boulder in his front yard. He grew weary of this big, unattractive stone in the center of his lawn, so he decided to take advantage of it and turn it into an object of art. He went to work on it with hammer and chisel, and chipped away at the huge boulder until it became a beautiful stone elephant. When he finished, it was gorgeous, breath-taking. A neighbor asked, "How did you ever carve such a marvelous likeness of an elephant?" The man answered, "I just chipped away everything that didn’t look like an elephant!"
V. The Direction Change Stage
a. The young eagle, falling fast, has decided he must do something. What is it?
b. He must change direction! He must start going up instead of down.
c. This decision stage and the direction change stage are called repentance.
d. Repentance is a decision to turn away from evil and turn back to God.
i. It takes place in the mind.
ii. In that way it is a decision, but since it is a decision to change, there will soon be a direction change that results.
e. Sometimes we are reluctant to change direction.
f. Often Christians struggle with sin.
i. They are sorry for the struggle.
ii. But there is no direction change as a result.
g. 2 Corinthians 7:10, "For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation; but the sorrow of the world produces death."
h. We¡¦re talking about God teaching us to fly - to live the faith life in a way that is pleasing to Him and brings us to maturity.
VI. The Doing Stage
a. If you want to be distressed -- look within. If you want to be defeated -- look back. If you want to be distracted -- look around. If you want to be dismayed -- look ahead. If you want to be delivered -- look up!
b. The adult eagle can teach her young to fly but she cannot fly for them.
i. They must do it. Have you ever seen two adult eagles flying piggyback? Neither have I.
c. Galatians 6:5, "Each one shall bear his own load..."
d. Consider this: Our obedience is central to our being blessed.
i. Remember when Israel crossed the Red Sea? Moses said "Move forward!" The people obeyed. Then when the feet of the priests touched the water, it divided.
ii. When they crossed the Jordan on their way to the Promised land it was the same way. They moved forward, put their feet in the water, and it divided.
iii. When Jesus cleansed the ten lepers, he told them to go present themselves to the priest. Then, "as they were going, they were cleansed." (Luke 17:14)
e. The eagle learns to fly by striving against the gravity that is pulling him down - in short, by flying.
VII. The Deliverance Stage
a. "He spread His wings to catch them, He carries them on His pinions."
b. I am told that the adult eagle will actually swoop down and catch her falling offspring on her back and carry them back up to the home perch if they can¡¦t fly.
c. 2 Timothy 3:11, "What persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord delivered me!"
d. Psalm 34:19 "Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but the Lord delivers him out of them all."
e. 2 Peter 2:9 "The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation..."
f. We must be about the doing, in order for the deliverance to come.
g. The promise of deliverance is there. We must believe it and move ahead. We must be striving to fly even if we can¡¦t quite do it yet.
h. Is God teaching you how to fly?
i. Have you seen any or all of these stages of God¡¦s flight school in your life?
ii. What is your attitude toward them?
iii. Are you focused on the goal of being able to go "solo" or are you clinging to the comfort of the nest?
I love you, not only for what you are -- but for what I am when I am with you. I love you, not only for what you have made of yourself -- but for what you are making of me. I love you, for the part of me that you bring out. I love you, for putting your hand into my heaped-up heart and passing over all the foolish, weak things that you can’t help dimly seeing there, and for drawing out into the light all the beautiful belongings that no one else had looked quite far enough to find. I love you, because you are helping me to make of the lumber of my life, not a tavern, but a temple; out of works of my every day -- not a reproach, but a song.
John Gilmour, a godly Britisher who loved to witness for Christ, always carried gospel books to give to people as he had opportunity. One day Gilmour was walking in a little village when he came across an old Irishman selling lids, kettles, and saucepans. Gilmour greeted the man, "Good morning, how is business today?" "Oh," said the Irishman, "I cannot complain." Then Gilmour said, "What a grand thing it is to be saved!" The old man looked intently at him and replied, "I know something better than that." "Better than being saved? I would like to know what that is." With a warm smile, the man responded, "The companionship of the One who saved me, sir."
