Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Download MP3 (right click to save)
Since we call our outreach among Native Americans "On Eagles' Wings," it's natural that I would have learned a lot about eagles in recent years. You only need to have seen one in flight to know that there's something singular and almost regal about these magnificent birds. It's no wonder they have been the symbol of great empires. One of the many amazing facts about eagles is the way they respond to an approaching storm. Other birds sense that storm coming and they head for cover. Oh, but not the mighty eagle. No, he literally sits on the edge of his nest, waiting expectantly for the storm to come. When it does, he locks his wings in an ascending position and he uses the storm's strong winds to help him spiral round and round, rising higher and higher all the time. Ultimately, the eagle begins to see sunlight around him and the storm below him. He rides the storm until he rises above the storm.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Flying Into the Storm."
God seems to love the eagle like we do. One Bible picture shows the one whose hope is in the Lord soaring like an eagle ( Isaiah 40:31). Even in a storm - especially in a storm. That may be a very important picture for you right now because "storm" is a good word to describe what you're going through right now. You have no choice about getting hit by the storm and you certainly have no control over it, but you do have a choice about how you handle this storm. You can let it frighten you into retreating, you can let it bury you, or you can fly into that storm and let it take you higher than you have ever flown before.
In his amazing words in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, our word for today from the Word of God, Paul talks about how he moved from being beaten down by his storm to capturing his storm as a means of soaring where he had never gone before. His storm was what he called his "thorn in the flesh," an unidentified issue that, in his words, tormented him constantly; something painful and limiting that he had repeatedly begged God to remove. Instead of taking away the storm, God said to Paul, and He says to us, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
Then, like the eagle, Paul realizes the storm can be his chance to experience a new level of power and spiritual altitude. He says, "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." Again like the mighty eagle, Paul in a sense, says, "Come on, storm! You're not going to beat me! You're not going to defeat me! You are my chance to experience Christ's power as only those in the midst of a storm can!"
Your storm strips you of your self-reliance, your ability to control things, your ability to contribute anything to a solution, and that's actually an exciting place to be. Because it means it's going to have to be totally God! Don't fight that. Open yourself up to the possibilities of letting God carry you to a new level of spiritual power, of knowing Him, of seeing things you've never seen before. It was only after his awful season of suffering and loss that Job could say to God: "My ears had heard of You, but now my eyes have seen you" ( Job 42:15).
You can meet Jesus, touch Jesus, experience Jesus in a storm as nowhere else. And if you'll surrender to the mighty winds of God's great grace and empowerment, you will find yourself eventually able to look down on the storm that once held you down. You'll be looking at it from God's perspective. And you will be flying higher than you've ever flown before!