Enjoy Your Flight
Recently, my mom posted a video on Facebook of a giant condor being released back into nature. It emerged out of a huge cage, so I’m guessing it was in captivity because it had been injured, and the people there were the ones that had nursed it back to health. They were on top of a large mountain range with a huge drop off. The condor flapped his wings a few times, coming close to the edge, as if it was afraid to attempt flight. Flap to the edge, retreat…flap to the edge, retreat. I’m sure the rescuers that watched were anxious, as was I, to see if he would ever take the leap, to see if their efforts had been successful. And then, finally, it’s like he got his confidence up and this time, when he approached the edge, he did not retreat, but instead trusted his huge expanded wings to lift him into the air, where he soared off into the distance. It was beautiful.
Right then, I felt a nudging that there was a message for us in what I had just seen. Before we come to know Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we are in captivity and Satan is our captor. We are bound and chained to our sin, caged and unable to grow into who God created us to be. But then…thank You, God for the but thens…God finds us and breaks the chains that have yoked us to our iniquity for far too long. We learn that He loves us and that He has good plans for us; we learn that He is faithful and that we can trust Him.
Then we learn that having a relationship with Jesus comes with obstacles, sometimes hard, sometimes painful, sometimes both. This is where the condor story aligns with ours. We find ourselves on the edge, God told us that He’d protect us, but in order to overcome the obstacle, we have to first overcome our unbelief and take that leap of faith. “That’s a long way to the bottom if I fail, but at this point what do I have to lose?” In all his pre-flight flapping, I think the condor remembered that he could fly, he was just a little skeptical that he could do it again…that those massive wings were going to support him once he left the safety of the mountain top.
We may not have giant wings with the ability to soar in the air, but the bible tells us in Isaiah 40:31 “They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” Psalm 91:4 tells us “He will cover you with His feathers. He will shelter you with His wings. His faithful promises are your armor and protection.” If you were meant to have wings, God would have made you a bird. We don’t have to have wings as long as we believe and trust that His wings will protect us and ultimately take us to great heights. Sometimes the hardest thing we have to do is step off the safety of our mountain top; step out of our comfort zone into the unknown. The thing is, it may be unknown to us, but it’s not unknown to our Father.