Skip to main content

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!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Excel Still More!

To excel, according to some of the meanings from a few dictionaries, is to surpass others, do extremely well, outdo, do something better than anyone else. In 1 Thessalonians 4:1, we find the phrase “excel still more”.   It prompts the question:  if we are already doing something better than anyone else, why would we be encouraged to do even more? Perhaps it would be helpful to see the wording that other translations use for “excel still more” to see why we would be encouraged to do so.  Here is a sampling: • abound more and more • to keep doing so more and more • but try even harder • live that way more and more. • that you progress even more. • that you increase more and more in how you ought to walk Maybe it would also be helpful to see some other verses where the word “excel” is used: “Now in Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (which when translated means Dorcas); this woman was excelling in acts of kindness and charity which she did habitually.”...
Post a Comment
Read more

Value Proposition

Value proposition:  it’s a marketing statement that summarizes why a consumer should buy a product or use a service.  It should clearly and concisely communicate what customers can gain from selecting a particular brand over that of its competitors. In a value proposition, you don’t want your product to be viewed as being worth less than what your competitors offer.   But even worse, in a bit of a quirk of how letters and spaces can fall, if you take out the space between “worth” and “less”, you get “worthless”, which means something of no value.   If that word is used in conjunction with how your product is viewed by customers, it’s a word that will likely kill your brand. In the book of Philippians, the Apostle Paul, in a sense, communicated some value propositions. In chapter three, he starts off with describing the value of some things that many considered as extremely valuable in that day and age.   They had to do with status and achievement in the reli...
Post a Comment
Read more

New Year Trash or Treasure?

You probably know the old saying:  “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”.  I am not going to try to prove or disprove it, just look at it from a different angle. Cheryl and I were recently walking on a beach in Florida .  A man was walking along with a bag and was picking up trash and putting it in the bag.  Was he picking up things of value? We also saw a different man walking along the same beach with a metal detector.  He would swing it back and forth and would occasionally stop and dig in the sand.  Was he looking for things of value? Both were intent.  Both were focused.  Both were diligent. I’m guessing that the one picking up trash was not looking for things of value.  I’m also guessing that, by picking up trash, he was valuing the beauty of the beach and didn’t want the trash to mar it.  The one with the metal detector, I’m guessing that he was not looking for metallic items of trash but was looking for...
1 comment
Read more