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Soaring With Broken Wings


Eagle Point Park is located above one of the lock and dams on the Mississippi River.  The park is well named.  The eagles majestically soar above the water and then swoop down to catch the fish in the waters near the lock and dam.

The prophet Isaiah wrote:  “Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary” (40:31). The opportunity of seeing an eagle soaring above the Mississippi really brings this passage to life. 

One summer day, as I was walking through our back ally, I spotted a very large crow hopping along ahead of me.  As I drew near, I expected it to take off in flight but it just hopped away.  As I kept walking, the crow kept hopping away to maintain a safe distance.  Finally, as I drew too near, the crow spread its wings but its left wing stuck out at a strange angle.  No wonder it was hopping; with a broken wing there was no way it was going to fly.

Consider both of these images and a line from the song Shout to the North:  “Rise up church with broken wings, fill this place with songs again…”

A crow might not be in the same category as a majestic bald eagle, but a crow with a broken wing certainly is a pitiful sight, especially when it can’t even get off the ground!  How then can the songwriter envision the church rising up with broken wings?

To put it on a more personal level, how could we individually rise up with wings as eagles?  After all, our mistakes, our failures, our inadequacies and our insecurities all typically add up to some serious wing damage, perhaps even broken ones!

The reality is, on our own, we really can’t soar with broken wings. Neither can the Church! But the songwriter gives us a glimpse of when soaring might be possible:  “Of our God who reigns on high, by His grace again we’ll fly.”

By grace again we’ll fly?  If anything can overcome or compensate for broken wings, it would be grace!  So we wait for the Lord and we look to His grace and somehow we are swept up in His thermals of grace and we soar again!

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