In keeping with our Life Abundant theme, I’m sharing this excerpt from a devotional published by Journey Christian Church on August 25:
In his book, The Song of the Bird, author Anthony de Mello tells the following story:
A man found an eagle’s egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them. All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air.
Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat on his strong golden wings. The old eagle looked up in awe. “Who’s that?” he asked. “That’s the eagle, the king of the birds,” said his neighbor. “He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth – we’re chickens.” So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that’s what he thought he was.
Reflection Question
In what area of your life are you living as a chicken when God, in reality, has made you an eagle? Where do you see yourself soaring?
Prayer
“Father, you have put something in me that wants to fly like an eagle. But too often I listen to the voices of others and my own that tell me I’m just a chicken. Fill me this day, Holy Spirit. Let me soar to the heights and to the richness that you have called me. Set me free to be the unique person you have made me in Jesus and in whose name I pray, Amen.”
Be blessed,
R
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