Eagles' Wings

Isaiah 40:31; But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.

It’s wonderful to imagine rising up on eagle’s wings, but what does this really mean? It gives an image of what a victorious Christian life looks like, but I'll admit there are times I don't feel like I’m walking victoriously. I feel like I’m plodding through a marsh of thick brush, fighting mosquitoes and horseflies along the way. Oh, how I'd love to mount up on eagles' wings every day.

In the mid-nineteenth century Hannah Whitall Smith wrote The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life, now considered classic Christian literature. In her book she says, “The Lord has not only told us to consider the ‘flowers of the field,’ but also the ‘birds of the air’”; and she reminds us of Psalm 55:6-8, which says, "Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest--I would flee far away and stay in the desert; I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the tempest and storm." Whitall Smith says, “Our souls were made to ‘mount up with wings’ . . . we long to ‘fly away’ from all that so holds and hampers and imprisons us here.”

The secret of our “wings,” according to Whitall Smith, is found in the phrase “those who wait on the Lord.” And, she explains, “The soul that waits upon the Lord is the soul that is entirely surrendered to Him, and that trusts Him perfectly.”

And so I see that waiting upon the Lord is an exercise in surrender and trust, an exercise that will lift us above all earthly problems to “the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6), where my perspective will change to become like His, and I'll be able to “overcome the world through faith.”

Hmmm, sounds a whole lot better than slogging through the marsh with the horseflies!