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THE WAY OF THE EAGLES
by Joe R. Garman

"Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will show you; thy elders, and they will tell you.

When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.

For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.

He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; He led him about, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye.

As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him" (Deuteronomy 32:7-12 KJV).

It is thrilling as we walk through the pages, chapters, and verses of God’s Holy and inspired writings to see the many times God refers to His followers as being like mighty eagles.

In my evangelistic endeavors around the world, I have had the privilege of leading crusades in 59 different nations. It never ceases to amaze me how many of these nations have the emblem of an eagle interwoven into their national flag or symbol.

In some republics, for instance, they have the wings of an eagle on both sides of the police badge, showing authority, strength, and power.

Other countries have the emblem of an eagle on the flag pole just above the flag, showing authority. It is not so unusual that man should recognize the eagle as the greatest of all the birds that fill our sky today, because the Lord also recognized the eagle to be such and many times compared his followers to them.

Eagle Flight Patterns

Isaiah records, "Those who wait upon the Lord shall mount up with wings as a mighty eagle" (Isaiah 40:31).

Stop and think about what Isaiah is saying. If our faith and trust is in the Lord, if our faith does not falter regardless of what Satan casts against us, we can and we shall rise up and over these trials and temptations upon wings as a mighty eagle.

Into the Storms of Life

Did you realize the eagle is the only bird which flies directly into a thunderstorm? Other birds fly away from a thunderstorm seeking refuge and shelter in the safety of a barn or their nest. But it is not so with the mighty eagle.

The eagle flies directly into the thunderclouds. God does not permit storms in our life for the purpose of defeating us but for the purpose of benefiting us.

What are the benefits of turbulent winds? Turbulent winds cause the eagle to fly higher, giving him a larger view, lifting him above harassment, allowing him to use less effort, and helping him to fly faster.

Rising above the Clouds

These updrafts cause the eagle to reach great heights as he soars with them. From this higher position his sharp eyes are able to see more. As he soars higher, he leaves behind all distractions. The feather structure prevents stalling, reduces the turbulence, and produces a relatively smooth ride with minimum effort - even in rough winds. Thus, when he glides in wind currents, speeds of 80 to 100 miles per hour are not uncommon.

The Christian is like the eagle in that he also faces turbulent winds in his life but the power of the Christian to rise above the pressures and temptations comes from his identification with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ: "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made comfortable unto His death" (Philippians 3:10).

This is exactly what Isaiah is saying. We too can rise above the thunderstorms of life, if we will but wait upon the Lord and seek His will in these situations that confront us.

It is also interesting to ask the question, "How did Isaiah know the ways of the eagle back in an age of ignorance and superstition? How did Isaiah or those around him know that the eagle flew over the thunderclouds rather than away from them like all the other birds? How could he have recorded this for our reading today, if it were not given to him by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit?" Only the Lord could have put those thoughts and words in Isaiah’s mind and heart. This is another evidence to prove the Bible is indeed the Word of God.

No Easy Flight

Perhaps sometime for devotions you will take a good Bible concordance in one hand and the Holy Scriptures in the other and go from cover to cover looking at the various ways the Lord refers to His followers as being like this powerful bird. Of all the scriptures speaking of the ways of the eagle, my favorite is Deuteronomy 32:7-12.

Once, when I was preaching a revival meeting in a small country church this verse was brought to my attention by a wildlife conservation commissioner who had observed the way of the eagles around the world. He said, "Deuteronomy 32:7-12 proves to me all the more that the Bible is the Word of God. The Bible is correct in every instance when it refers to the way the Mediterranean eagle learns to fly".

Look first of all at Deuteronomy 32:11. It states that the first thing the eagle does is to stir up its nest. The conservationist said of all the birds that fill our skies today, the baby eagle is the hardest to teach to fly.

Nest Too Comfortable

This is probably because eagles build their nest so high upon the mountain peak. If a young sparrow or robin learning to fly happens to fall to the ground, it does not have far to fall to safe, warm, comfortable leaves. But it is not so with the baby eagle. He knows crashing into the craggy rocks means instant death. For this reason the bird is very hesitant to leave his nest.

Flight Too Risky

Can’t you see the baby eagle as he looks over the side of his nest and shakes his head, thinking, "No, not me. I have never passed this way and I am not about to begin now. This nest has been home to me for some time and I am going to stay in it". Then mother eagle takes things into her care.

Stirring Up the Nest

The first thing mother eagle does, according to the Bible and according to the wildlife commissioner, is to stir up the nest. In other words, she begins walking around inside the nest, breaking the twigs and turning over the leaves. The nest which had been so safe, warm, and comfortable is no longer that way. Now the wind can blow through the holes in the nest that mother has made. Now the little sticks begin to poke the bird’s side. Home is not as comfortable as it was.

You see, mother literally tore up his nest to force him to leave it. Many times, this is exactly how God must work with us. Sometimes God has to stir up our security in order to get us to launch into the next great program of faith He has ready for us.

We like to have nice things and plenty of them. There is nothing wrong with wanting nice things or even possessing nice things. This becomes wrong when these things begin to interfere with God’s will for our lives.

Hold a coin an arm’s distance away from your eye and it looks very small in comparison to all the other things you can see around it. But put the coin only one inch from your eye and you will notice you can hardly see anything else because the coin is obstructing your view.

As long as we keep earthly possessions in their proper place, there is nothing wrong with having them. But, when they begin to obstruct our spiritual vision and stand as obstacles in the way of God’s will for us, these things become wrong.

Not only has mother stirred up the baby bird’s security, but she has made him very uncomfortable. This is how God must deal with us at times.

But, the little bird thinks to himself, "Well, it isn’t as nice as it once was, but it is still my home, and I am going to stay right here". Then mother has to do the next thing the Bible states and the wildlife commissioner confirms. She hovers over her young baby, flapping her powerful wings just over his head. She will flutter her wings for several seconds, then rest, then flutter, then rest. The little bird will be running back and forth inside the nest trying to escape his mother’s powerful wings, but regardless of where he goes, she is there. She made the nest. She knows it much better than he does. He cannot escape the presence of his mother.

The baby bird is probably thinking to himself, "What a terrible turn of events this is. These were the wings that used to hide me when foes would come upon me. These were the wings that used to protect me from the cold, and now these wings are trying to beat me to death. Mother doesn’t love me anymore!" But this is far from the truth.

Mother loves her baby. She is simply trying to get him to launch out so he can become the kind of eagle God meant for him to be. And sometimes God has to hover over us with His powerful wings in order to get us to launch out and become the kind of Eagle Christians He wants us to be.

This hovering process of God can be our greatest motivation for spiritual growth or our deadliest means of discouragement, trouble, affliction, opposition, pressure, chastening, anguish, testing. Tribulation will become destructive if we fail to see the hand of God behind it: "For the people turneth not unto Him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the Lord of hosts" (Isaiah 9:13).

Now the little bird is watching all of this. He knows his mother hovers for only a few seconds and then is resting, and the bird thinks to himself, "I know what I’ll do. The next time mother rests those wings I’ll scurry up on the back of her neck. She can’t beat me if I am sitting on the back of her neck." This is exactly what he does. By the way, it is also exactly what the mother knew he would do. When mother rests, the little bird scurries up her wing onto the back of her neck.

The wildlife commissioner said it is amazing to watch through binoculars at how fast these little birds can travel. Now the little bird is sitting on the back of his mother’s neck and thinking, "Oh, what a smart bird am I." But if eagles could smile, she would have a big smile on her beak as she flies away from the nest.

Failure At First

While teaching him to fly, the mother eagle will take her baby high above the clouds, higher than he had ever dreamed of going. The little bird sitting on his mother’s back looking around thinks to himself, "My, how beautiful all this is. This is indeed a mountain top experience. I feel so sorry for those chickens and ducks who cannot get up this high." And just when the bird is enjoying life at its very finest, mother darts out from underneath him, leaving him stranded in mid-air. The little bird begins to flop his wings as hard as he can but his wings will not hold him up. He looks at the ground, it is coming toward him at record speed. The little bird closes his eyes, he doesn’t want to see it when he hits, and just when he is ready to hit the ground, suddenly there is mother’s wing, and on her wing she once again bears him up into the heavens.

Isn’t this exactly how the good Lord deals with us? Sometimes we are closer to the Lord than at other times, aren’t we? This is natural. Sometimes we have mountain top experiences and other times we seem to be walking through the valleys. But regardless of where we are, God’s wing is always there and God is ever waiting to lift us once again back onto the mountain top with Him.

Do you remember when you became a Christian, when you walked down the aisle and took the minister’s hand? You said before that audience, "Yes, I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God". Can you remember what a mountain top experience this was in your life? But shortly thereafter you encountered the valleys and you felt yourself falling farther away from the Lord than you had ever been. This happens in everyone’s life, not just yours. But, regardless of how far away we fall, God somehow provides a spark of revival for us. God provides a ray of light for us, ever trying to reach us and get our attention so He can lift us back even higher.

"I Will Never Leave You"

The Lord said, "I will never forsake you. I will be with you even until the end of the age."

Some of us know what it is to be on God’s wings when He takes us in flight, when he inspires us with courage and teaches us to use our wings. Others of us have come to that experience when, after all the flying, all the doing, all the enduring, we are weary at heart, and we seek shelter under His wings. In the same way the eagle, after her flight with her little one, takes him back into her shelter, and in effect says, "You are tired now. I will use the wings which have borne you, when wearied in flight all around you, to protect you against both the storm and the foe".

The little one will not even hear the storm without. He has felt the hard side of the wing; he now feels the soft, warm feathery side of it. The Psalmist also knew what it was to be on the wing of God, borne upon the storm so that he might learn how to fly. He thanks God that when he has become weary of the storm because it is too much for his strength, he is taken back into the nest, under the warmth and shelter of that wing which formerly had sustained him.

Growing In Him

The Bible many times refers to the Christian life as being like the physical life. When you were a baby, you could not walk. You would try to walk and take maybe one or two steps and fall. You would hurt yourself and cry. But what would have happened if you would have just laid there and kicked your legs and said, "Oh, I’ll never learn how to walk. I give up!" If you had taken that attitude you would not have learned to walk. Instead you took your parent’s hand and got up again. You kept trying and finally you could take several steps without falling. After days of practice you could finally go across the room without falling. Then you learned how to run. You learned how to walk backwards and jump up and down and go in circles. But there was only one way you learned to do this. That was by taking your parent’s hand and getting back up and trying it again.

It is the same with the Christian life. The Bible says that when we are first baptized into Jesus Christ, we are babes in Christ. We are not fully mature Christians. We are going to make mistakes. We are going to trip and fall, but we must not become discouraged! We must refuse to say, "I cannot do it". Instead, say, "Through the power of God I can be a better Christian."

If we will keep taking our heavenly Father’s hand and getting up again, then we will begin to walk like Christians. The more we get up, the stronger we become the next time. This is not saying you will finally get to the place where you will never fall. I have never met anyone who has attained perfection. Rather, we are always learning to grow in the Lord. I have known people who have been Bible scholars for over 50 years and they will still tell you that they are learning and growing in Jesus. So we never get to the place where we can say, "Now I have attained. Now I am THE Christian". But rather we are constantly growing in the Lord Jesus Christ.

As you enter a midwest state prison, there is a sign hanging over the door which reads, "The fault is not in falling. Rather the fault is in not getting up again". It is the same way with the Christian life. Everyone falls. The Bible says in Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God". We have all sinned. Sin is wrong but the greatest of all faults is not the sin. The greatest of all faults is not getting up again.

Risking More - Soaring Higher

Now the mother eagle is flying along with the baby safely on her wing once again. The little bird is thinking to himself, "Wow, I never want to go through that experience again. Mother, if you love me, don’t ever drop me again." Mother flies along until his blood begins to circulate normally again. His heart begins to beat at a comfortable pace again and then, just when he thinks everything is right, suddenly mother’s wing darts out from under him the second time. Once again he falls through the annals of space. His little wings still unable to hold him up, yet they function better than they did the first time. Time after time this mother will catch her baby, take him high into the air and then drop him again, until finally he learns to stretch those God-given wings and soar through the sky the way the Lord meant an eagle to do.

Even then she will not leave her baby, but she stays with him and teaches him how to build a nest. She teaches him to hunt, and to be the kind of eagle God meant him to be. Isn’t that exactly the way God deals with us?

But, the commissioner said, sometimes the baby eagle will refuse to learn to fly. After being dropped several dozen times he thinks to himself, "Why should I try to fly? Mother is going to catch me anyway". So he just folds his wings and lets himself drop. The commissioner said the mother will work with the baby long into the night. Early the next morning she will be back in the heavens again, dropping her baby, screeching at the top of her voice, exhorting him to fly like an eagle.

Fly or Die

Finally, after several days of working with her baby, if there are no signs of the desire to fly, she will take him for one final flight, higher than he has ever gone before. Darting out from under him she will leave him to fall to his death on the craggy rocks.

As long as she lives, she will never again return to that place where her baby fell to his death. Psychiatrists have tried to reason why an eagle will do this to its offspring. It is the only bird known to man that would rather have its offspring die this sudden death than to stay in the nest and become the prey of some wild beast or freeze to death on some cold night.

The only answer man has conceived is that somewhere deep within the nature of this mighty and powerful bird is the spirit that would rather have its young die instantly than die some slow and dishonorable death.

Haven’t we seen this happen within the church as well? I know I have. I have seen ministers, Sunday School teachers, Christian men and women whom I thought were so close to God and flew on such a high spiritual plane with the Lord, but then suddenly something happened within their life. They fell to such a low and apostate condition, they not only began to believe in false doctrine and worship vain religions, but they even began to teach others to do the same. When these things happen you ask yourself, wondering, "How can this be? How can someone who knew the Lord so well fall to this position?"

The Bible tells us how. These people prayed to be Eagle Christians, but there was an undercurrent of rebellious nature which would not submit to the will of God. They had secret sins they refused to let go. The Lord said, "You cannot serve Me and love the world. You are either for Me or you are against Me. You cannot be in between. I would that you were either hot or cold. If you try to be lukewarm I will vomit you out of My mouth". Revelation 3:16

"No man can serve two masters. He will love the one and hate the other. Or cling to one and despise the other. You are either gathering with Me or you are scattering abroad." Matthew 6:24

Sometimes it seems as if every nest we feather is scattered and we are constantly being driven off the ledge of life. But God wants us to ever be testing our wings against the stormy gales.

Just think of the pinions we will have, the vision we will have gained, and the ranges we can sweep. Then ask if it is not an eternal kindness that hovers over us.

Chicken or Eagle

When a chicken falls it doesn’t have far to fall and usually there is a soft landing for the chicken in the barn lot. The highest a chicken can go is on the limb of a tree or on top of the chicken house.

But when an eagle falls many eyes behold the eagle. So it is with the people who try to live for Christ. Have you ever noticed that when a person who has never made a profession of faith in Jesus commits some great wrong in the community, no one seems to say much about it? But let a man or woman who really tried to live for God, commit the same wrong and what does everyone shout?

"Hypocrite, hypocrite, look at what he said he was and look at what he did." You see, not many eyes behold the chicken when it falls, but many eyes behold the eagle.

In most countries we tend to separate our chickens. One farmer doesn’t want his chickens eating another farmer’s corn. It is a terrible thought, and I tremble to think about it, but I am afraid this is exactly what man has tried to do with the Lord’s Body as well.

Man has made Christ’s Body a chicken yard religious system. I repeat, man, not God, has made it so.

We presently have hundreds of separate chicken pens and we tell our people to stay within these congregations. "Now, you should not worship with that congregation because it is of a little different belief. You of this group, do not fellowship with those folks because you are supposed to stay in your own chicken pen."

But there is, deep within the nature of the Eagle Christian, something that tells him, "This is not right. I must rise higher than these others ever dreamed". This is exactly why I refuse to let anyone tag me or put me in a jacket as to which "denomination" I belong. I do not want to belong to any denomination, rather I want to belong to Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. I do not claim to be the only Christian. I am simply claiming to be Christian only. I do not want to be bound by man-made creeds and doctrines, rather I want to speak where the Bible speaks and remain silent where the Bible is silent. In opinion, I say we need to have liberty, but in doctrine we must have unity.

The church to which I belong has no headquarters in the world. Its headquarters are in Heaven. There is no earthly head over the church of which I am a member. The only head over my church is Jesus Christ himself.

Freedom in Christ is not being hand-cuffed or shackled to a denomination, but rather being an Eagle Christian. It is rising higher and freer in Jesus than others ever dreamed. Settle for nothing less in your life than to become an "eagle" Christian.

Don’t put it off another moment. Become an Eagle Christian today. Believe in Jesus to be your Lord and Savior. Confess His precious Name among men. Repent of your sins and be buried with Christ in Christian baptism. Begin to live life in glory to God. If I can be of assistance to you, please do not hesitate to call upon me.

Joe R. Garman, ARM President

Footnote: There are 48 kinds of eagles in the world. Only the Bald Eagle and the Golden Eagle breed in the United States and Canada. Different kinds of eagles have various ways of training their young to fly. The eagle herein described is the Mediterranean Eagle common to Palestine.

Under His Wings

If you need help in making a decision for Christ, or if you want someone to assist you in Christian baptism, please contact:
Joe R. Garman, President
American Rehabilitation Ministries
P.O. Box 1490, Joplin, MO 64802-1490

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