“If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” – John 8:36
Show of hands if you’ve heard the story of the eagle and the chicken*. It’s not a long one, but I’ll try to paraphrase as best I can. There once was a baby eagle who fell out of his nest and was found by a chicken farmer. The farmer brought him to his home and raised him in the coop with his other chickens for years, and the eagle knew no better. It ate as a chicken, slept as a chicken, and fluttered about as a chicken.
Word got around about this phenomenon, and when a naturalist heard he had to see it for himself. You see, this individual knew the eagle was the king of the sky and to witness such a creature strutting around the coop, pecking at the ground—this blew his mind. The farmer explained that the bird was a chicken, trained and raised to be nothing else. The naturalist disagreed of course, because he knew the animal was born an eagle, had the heart of an eagle, and nothing could change that.
The two men decided a contest to see who was right. The naturalist picked up the eagle, set it atop the coop fence, and told him, “You are an eagle. Stretch your wings and fly.” The eagle looked at the naturalist, looked at the farmer and fellow chickens, and jumped off the fence back to the comfortable, familiar ground. The farmer grinned but the naturalist didn’t give up. His eyes fell on the farmhouse, and with the farmer’s permission he took the scared and confused bird to the roof. Again he said to the eagle, “You are an eagle. You belong to the sky, not the earth. Stretch your wings and fly.” The eagle looked at the naturalist, and jumped from his arm to the farmhouse roof.
“Told you so, it’s a chicken,” the farmer said with a smirk.
Knowing a little something about eagles – a lot of something, really—the naturalist asked if he could return the next day for one more try. The farmer was too amused to refuse, and so he agreed. Early the following morning, the naturalist arrived to take the farmer and the eagle to the foot of a nearby mountain. From this new location neither coop nor farmhouse were in sight. The man held the eagle on his arm, pointed towards the sky and said in a confident tone, “You are an eagle! You belong to the sky and not the earth. Stretch your wings and fly!”
This time, the eagle lifted it head towards the sun shining bright, straightened its large body from its chicken stance, and spread massive wings to their full span. They moved slowly initially, as this was an unfamiliar sensation, but in no time they moved surely and powerfully. And with a mighty screech, the eagle took off, and flew away.
The story ends there, so no one knows what became of the farmer, the naturalist, or the eagle. But what’s interesting to note is that the powerful king of the sky had to be told three times, in three different settings, that he was free. And each time found him further from what was comfortable and known. It seemed to take near isolation from the squawking and fluttering chickens for the eagle to hear nothing but one truth, the truth of who he was since birth.
Much like this animal, we human beings who were made a little lower than the angels have to be separated from the noise and distractions in order to hear, accept, and live this truth: “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
Fam, do you know, like really know, that Jesus Christ of Nazareth set you free from the slavery of sin, from the eternal separation from God? Do you know that as we strut, flutter, and peck around the coops of fear, guilt, unworthiness, and the fake news of being unlovable—we are free to spread our spiritual wings to the max and lift off? Do you know that once the Son of God is accepted as Lord and Savior, there is no principality or power that can enslave our hearts, minds, and souls again? No matter how strong their influence may be, they can’t pull us back or down to where and what we once were. Believing otherwise is exactly what the Enemy wants us to do, to forget who and whose we are so we start to make a U-turn towards those old coops of our past willingly.
If perchance you don’t know, then get ready, get ready, get ready. The time of isolation will come and feel jarring. Oh who am I kidding? It’s gonna be a real scary trip that will raise a lot of questions with few answers at first, and they won’t always be the answers we want when we want them. However just as the naturalist was with the eagle each time and spoke words of affirmation into its life, so will the Lord be with us and say:
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you….”
“I know the plans that I have for you….”
“You are fearfully and wonderfully made.”
“You are more than a conqueror.”
“Greater is He is that is in you than he that is in the world.”
“You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.”
“I love you, unconditionally and eternally.”
With words like these coming from an awesome being and creator of all which speaks only truth, how can we not believe Him? How can we stay with our wings tucked, heads bowed, and our hearts and minds enslaved? How can we ignore the very basic fact that in Him, by Him, and because of Him, we are free?
Mount up with the wings of an eagle, fam. Get free, and be free.
Prayer: Lord God, thank you for this opportunity to know and accept that in You alone there is true freedom. Please bless the readers in a mighty, mighty way. Open doors and knock down walls that have held them back from realizing Your purpose. This I ask in the matchless name of Jesus Christ, Amen.*Source: The Fable of the Eagle and the Chicken
Ask, Seek, Knock 