THE WINGS OF THE EAGLE

When I was in high school (yes, I can actually remember that far back, although my memories of that time are all in black and white), there were several teachers that some of us loved to torment. One of our “harassment tactics” was to wait until the teacher was writing on the blackboard and then launch a paper airplane in his direction. The plan was to see how close to the teacher we could come without actually hitting him. When the irate teacher spun around to find out who had joined the ranks of the terrorists, all he saw were thirty cherubic students dutifully writing in their notebooks.

A paper airplane can easily be made using a standard 8½” x 11” piece of paper. A few quick folds and the terror tool is ready to launch. About the only thing you have to be sure to do is make the folds sharp and remember that the wings must be equal and bent approximately at the same angle. If one wing is missing, the plane will not fly—it will spiral to the ground like a broken helicopter. If one wing is elevated above the other, the plane will fly in circles, although flying in circles is fine if you don’t have a destination in mind. So we are forced by necessity to make sure the wings of the plane are good or we really don’t have an airplane, we have a crash landing just waiting to happen.

Last week the blog I wrote was entitled, “You Were Born to Fly.” The process that an eaglet goes through to learn to fly holds many insights for us on how God teaches us to break loose and walk in faith. It’s vital that baby eagles learn to fly! They are not born with this innate ability . . . they must be taught and they must build strength in their wings. Eagles that never learn to fly are nothing more than turkeys pecking for seeds on the ground.

An eagle with one wing will never fly. It may take the leap out of the nest but unless both wings are in place and strong enough, it will not fly. At best, the eagle will helicopter to the ground.

The beautiful Old Testament imagery of an eagle soaring high above the countryside is one of my favorite pictures of the successful Christian life. On its powerful wings an eagle is lifted above the stresses, battles and mundanity of life as it learns to soar and follow the winds of the Spirit. Powerful imagery, powerful word picture.

Using the imagery of the eagle as a type/example of the New Testament believer, we must then ask, “What, exactly, are the wings?” What makes up these magnificent wings that help empower the believer, and need to be in harmony so that the believer’s life is one of purposeful movement?

 So what are the wings? 

“Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, ‘You have faith, and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works” (James 2:17-22, ESV).

One wing is faith and the other is action!

Like the wings of an eagle, faith and works cooperate with each other. There is a practical harmony between the vertical faith in God and the horizontal works—reaching out to a needy world. When the wings are out of synch, that is, when they are not working together, the eagle’s flight is hampered, if not completely ruined. When the wings are in harmony, the result is a thing of beauty. If faith without works is dead, then faith with works brings life!

When James said “Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead,” he could just as easily have said, “If an eagle does not have two wings, it cannot fly.” Faith and its companion, action, do not breed death; quite the opposite, they speak of and invoke life.