On Eagle's Wings

If you were limited to being a single body part, what part would you be?
It's a Biblical question, you know.

November 29-30, 2002

I took a little post-Thanksgiving Day trip to my dad's house.  Scott is keeping the boys so I have a little get-away here.  As I drove, I had an interesting thought. If it were me that stood before the Tree of Knowledge, would I not gobble the fruit right off it?  I'm fortunate enough to live at such a time in the history of man that I can see Jesus standing between me and the tree, but sometimes that only feeds my self-sufficiency.  I think I have this great resistance to that fateful tree, when really what I have is a noble distraction from its allure.  "Blessed are the poor in spirit..." He said.  How often do I embrace my own poverty sufficiently?  Oswald Chambers speaks of the bedrock that builds the Kingdom of God, and that it's not found in our possessions but in poverty. How slow I am to embrace that frailty, that futility within myself, even though knowing my own limits on the moral frontier really does soften the clay so You can begin to really mold me.

I had a image come to me for a friend who was preparing for ministry.  "Good" ministry, I told him, is a lot like riding on the back of an eagle.  You can try to do all kinds of wing-walking tricks and feats; but if you make that your goal, then the eagle must fly very carefully to keep your sure-footed.  If, however, you will simply cling to the feathers, hug the bird tightly and make the tightness of your grip your only claim to fame, then the eagle can do far more magnificent flying tricks, swooping and soaring to heights it never dared take you while you were trying to impress yourself and others by dancing on its back. 

I wrote this to him as he prepared to leave for seminary.  I write it for myself today.  Help me, Lord, to just cling.

I'd completely forgotten that gem of an image about how to deal with the ride on God's wings.  Revisiting it now gives me a chance to assess how I'm doing living it out.  He started by teaching me to accept a clinging posture, a lesson taught by flying to wild places, ones where only a fool would try to play the wing-walker.  But it is more than just a survival position now. 

I think I am finally learning to accept being whatever part of the body God assigns me to be--such was not always the case.
   21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.  I Cor. 12:21-26

There was a time when I longed for a public ministry, enough so that I rejoiced at the chance to enter diaconal training--as I mentioned a couple of posts ago.  But an interesting thing happened when I sat down with my sponsoring pastor for my first prep session.

As I took up my manual and settled into the leather chair in front of his desk, he studied me intently, and then opened our session by saying, "We'll do this.  But I have a feeling you're intended for a non-traditional ministry."  He was dead accurate with that prediction.

The next few years were not easy, as I walked long periods in which God probed with very personal questions springing from those verses above:  would I be unpresentable?  Would I be weaker?  Would I let him show  me how I was nonetheless indispensable?    This little prayer (help me, Lord, to cling) may very well have been the one that kicked all that into play.  Funny how the most off-hand prayers are often the ones with the most far-reaching effects.