#7 Wings like Eagles

Eagles have been on my mind a lot lately. Not only because they’re the dopest thing since pre-sliced bread, but because of the reminder they have given me about how to soar. In case you didn’t know, eagles don’t really fly in the same way we usually understand it. They don’t flap their wings as much as other birds and it makes their flight look effortless and majestic. The way that eagles fly is that they ride the wind, using momentum and wind streams to move themselves through the air far faster than they could by just flapping their wings. We could learn a thing or two on efficiency from the eagles, and that’s what I’m here to do.

The first thing that this reminds me is the fact that I am not typically very eagle-y. I don’t naturally slow down, holding my wings out to simply catch the wind. I feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders, like I need to react to every little thing that comes my way. But do I? Do I really need to be the only reason that success comes my way? American culture would like to tell me otherwise, but nowadays I’m not so sure. There are so many factors at play in the world that it’s not efficient enough to simply flap our wings in the wind. We  would get tired far too quickly doing that. We need to let go of the need to react to everything.

But the thing that I have been sinking my teeth into is the idea of riding the wind. I’m more of a flapper. All flight that happens must happen because my wings made it so. Can you relate to this perspective? Do you, too, feel the weight of the flight on your two wings? Do you feel like you have to make it all happen by yourself? Sometimes that mindset is hard to break, so what if we just shifted the focus. What if we reminded ourselves to shift the weight of the world from our wings to our eyes? What if we learned to catch the wind streams of life and truly ride the momentum back up into a better place?

The first step is to recognize that you have been slowing down. You start putting off emails, get more irritable in traffic, and have a general loss of energy. It’s completely normal-everyone has these slumps. But how do you get out of them? First of all, we need to shed our excess weight. Stressors that we don’t need to be dealing with must be shed. As I like to remind people, the phones do more harm than good. Put them away, along with anything else that you don’t need to be stressing over. 

And once you can’t shed any more, look for an upstream. An upstream is anything that gives you some momentum back and revitalizes your spirits in a significant way. It could be a change of pace, a new development in your personal life, or even a new show to watch. It’s anything that truly gives you that feeling that life is worth living again, and puts you back in good spirits. But as I have been thinking about this idea of upstreams, I realized that many of the things I just mentioned are quite fleeting. A good show might last a few weeks, then you start falling back into the slump. And though a friendship or even relationship might last just a little bit longer, I think that’s fleeting as well. As I was thinking through what to tell you about this, I lived out a story that ties in perfectly. 

I love hard work. I love the feeling of coming home sore galore and hungry as a bear. But lately life has put me on my butt in an office cubicle. It’s not the worst life, but I’m starting to miss the satisfying fatigue. Nonetheless, I got into the office and set to my usual duties: answering phone calls, fixing computers, and appeasing the occasional cranky-tanky. But something snapped in my head, and my patience went down the drain. It doesn’t help that I genuinely had some of my dumbest, peskiest customers I had seen in a while, but something simply snapped. I started praying “God, please send me some patience, because I’m going to lose it pretty soon.” 

I got up to take a quick breather. And as I was taking my lap around our floor, a thought hit me: what if our weakness isn’t a problem to be solved, but a shortcoming to be utilized. In other words, what if the end of my patience was the beginning of something else? A part of the story that needed me to reach this point to be told? I found the idea pretty nifty, but wasn’t sure what to do with it. Turns out, I didn’t need to do anything with it. I got back to my desk and saw a message from my boss, asking someone in our group to go help out with incoming mail (a task that would be very physically demanding indeed!) I immediately volunteered and jumped into moving and scanning those heavy boxes. And as I did, I started reflecting on everything that had just happened. Sometimes God gives us that upstream. He lifts our spirits in ways we couldn’t have done ourselves. Isaiah 40:31 talks about how those who wait for God will soar on eagles wings. Today I got to live out that verse. I got to experience God giving me a second wind. If anyone says God is dead, let him read my story. 

God will give you those upstreams. He will give you wings like eagles. It can feel like a risky play, but if you give God a free trial, He will prove it to you. I believe that with all my heart. So look for those upstreams. Hold your wings steady and float on the air. And when you find yourself sinking, pray for God’s intervention. He’s just itching to play a role in your life. You just have to let Him. 

Until next time

May peace be your guide and reward