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Weekly Devotion by Donnie Guy

The Prodigal Eagle!

(A Parable by Donnie Guy)

   Once upon a time there was a majestic eagle that soared and nested above a fertile green valley surrounded by beautiful mountains. What a sight he was, staying aloft on the warm currents of air, which swept up the sides of those mountains, as he kept watch over his beautiful surroundings. Why, one would have thought that God himself had appointed him to that task. Life was good for the eagle.

   Daily he soared over the fertile green valley, keeping watch and looking for food but one day a farmer moved into that valley to raise hogs. The majestic eagle, which was use to hunting for his food every day, now found the scraps that the farmer threw out to his hogs much easier pickings. No longer did he have to fly high searching hard for a meal. The company, surroundings and smell may not be the best but there was plenty of food for all. This was too good to be true. Soon the eagle found himself flying less and eating more. Before long he had lost his ability to fly and found himself living among the hogs and what used to be a majestic eagle, a symbol of power and strength, was now nothing more than a fat bird living in a hog pen.

   The Psalmist said: “The way of an eagle in the air is too wonderful a thing for me”. The sight of an eagle flying is overwhelming because eagles were created for heights not the lowlands, let alone pigpens or cages. They were created to live above and not below. So it is with believers. “We are in this world but we are not of this world”.

   It’s true, as believers, we must make our way through the lowlands of this world on our journey to our heavenly home but we are not to settle for what this world has to offer. Sure the pickings may be easier but slop is not the food of Christians and a pig sty is not our home. Nevertheless, it appears that too many of us have stopped to set up permanent camps in the hog pens of this world, willing to give up flight for a free handout. Like Esau, many of us have sold our birthright for a bowl of pottage, forgetting that “this world is not our home we’re just passing through”. But nothing is free! In spite of what the god of this world offers to those who setup housekeeping in the hog pens of his environment, there is still a penalty, price and place reserved for those who take him up on his offer of: “All these things will I give you, if thou will fall down and worship me”.

   Chickens are birds too but they forgot how to fly a long time ago, having become content to live in cages and eat with the pigs, never realizing that both are being fattened up for a slaughter. When chickens do take to the air, their flight is but for a short distance because they have grown fat and their heart just isn’t in it any longer anyway. Then too, there are no oohs or ahs over the short flight of a chicken. But to see a majestic eagle soaring in the heavens is a breath taking experience.  

   Believers are neither chickens nor hogs but sheep and sheep will not eat anything unclean or live in filth as do chickens and hogs. Neither will a sheep follow a stranger. “And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him; for they know not the voice of a stranger”. (Jn. 10:5) But when sheep began to associate with the hogs, after awhile the noise of grunts and squeals soon drown out the voice of the true Shepherd so the sheep may end up following a hireling, who’s sole desire is to devour and destroy them.  

   Matthew Henry once said: “This world is our pilgrimage not our portion” yet too many of us are like that eagle. We’re camping in the hog pen when we should be soaring in the heavens. Sure we have plenty but we’re powerless. We've lost not only the ability to fly above this world but our desire to do so as well, being weighted down by the riches this world offers. We forget that the Laodicean church had plenty, “we are rich and have need of nothing” but that church was powerless, having lost its light. The God of Light had left the building, a fact of which blind believers are totally unaware. The cause for His leaving was their companionship with this world. “Whosever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God”. (Jas. 4:4)

   Jesus said, “You are the light of the world”. Some churches today are filled to capacity with people but most have no power and no light so the world is growing darker and more evil. After all, one may have a box full of dead batteries but dead batteries produce no light. Muscles that aren’t used soon atrophy and a battery sitting on a shelf will lose it power too. No wonder Jesus said, “Let your light so shine among men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, who is in heaven”.

   The writer of Hebrews compares believers to runners but I have never seen a fat runner. Neither have I seen a runner carrying a backpack or luggage. These things would only weight him down and cause him to lose the race. So the writer of Hebrews encourages all runner to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us”.   

   Believers today are weighted down by possessions and pleasures of this world. Like chickens, many of us have become fat on the scraps of this world and caged by its devices when we should be soaring to new heights like an eagle. Eagles are not cage birds and believers are not sty residents. An eagle in a cage is not as majestic and beautiful as an eagle in the sky and neither are believers in the world.

   The sin that besets most believers is impatience. After all, we’re the plastic generation, purchasing things with credit cards that we can’t afford, storing up possessions that we don’t need nor can take with us. We’ve forgotten our command to “lay up for yourself treasures in heaven” because we’re too busy building storehouses in the pig sties of this world. But this world is not our home and its riches are not our reward. The writer of Hebrews tells us “to run the race with patience” but the average believer is so tightly wound that he has to take a pill to slow himself down. Most of us want patience but we want it RIGHT NOW!

   Not the eagle. He waits with patience as he soars in the heavens and builds his nest far above the pig sties of this world, enjoying sights that chickens and pigs will never see. Isaiah wrote: “They that wait upon the Lord, shall mount up with wings of eagles”. It is impossible to fly as an eagle weighted down with the luggage of this world. Remember, believers are meant for the sky not the sty.