God's Wisdom In A Nutshell

Hello!

One of my favorite Psalms is Psalm 103 which says:

Praise the Lord, my soul;
    all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the Lord, my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits—
 who forgives all your sins
    and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
    and crowns you with love and compassion,
 who satisfies your desires with good things
    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

There are so many wonderful promises found in that Psalm. When we praise God with our voices and the way that we live, we can expect forgiveness, healing and help during terrible times. We can also expect our desires to be satisfied and apparently, our youth renewed in some fashion.

Now that last verse states our youth will be renewed like the eagle, hmm that is eye catching and interesting. What exactly does this mean – how exactly is the eagle’s youth renewed?

As I was pondering this question, I did what most people do when a question arises..I Googled it. And faithful as Google is, it gave me a wonderful link to an interesting article about eagles. But also like Google, there is controversy as to the validity of the content. But, valid or not, I will share the story because we can apply this tale to the life of a Christian.

As the story goes, at about the age of 40 years, the eagle has a choice to make. It can choose to wither and die as it’s beak becomes misshapen, it’s feathers get thick and stuck together and it’s talons become weak- or it can begin the process of renewal. During this process the eagle supposedly beats it’s beak against a rock until it falls out. Then it waits until the new beak regrows. Then when the new beak is fully grown, it begins to pluck out it’s claws and again the eagle needs to wait until new talons grow. Lastly the eagle plucks out it’s feathers and waits until new feathers emerge. As the story goes, the whole process takes five months. Then the eagle can leave it’s nest and live another 30 years.

This is the analogy:

The beak (our mouth) will be renewed and thankfulness and joy will replace gossip, complaining and ungodly conversation- among other things.

The talons (our hands) will be renewed and we stop reaching for Holy Spirit defiling activities and substances and begin to reach for ways to help others.

The wings (our feet) will take us to places that honor the Lord. We stop frequenting the homes of people who do not have a relationship with the Lord and eventually these relationships fall away while we share our time with those who desire to honor the Lord.

It can be a painful transition in the sense that we will lose secular friends and even family members who choose to simply believe God exists but do not want to live as He instructs. Our renewed life will require us to turn away from anything that the Lord abhors including  secular music, movies, jokes, conversation and other activities we routinely participated in.

Our free time will be spent diligently searching for Truth within the pages of the bible, in order to be drawn into the life that the Lord desires for us. It is a process of resisting old ways of living and living God’s way.

It’s our choice- God doesn’t force us to change, but once we say that we would like Him to be Lord of our life- He will start to pull us away from the secular world through nudgings and sometimes pain. All of this is for our good much like when a parent yanks on a child’s arm when he is about to walk into the street with an approaching car. God sees the destruction awaiting us from our choices and would like to lead us to a better life.

We may think of our choices as harmless but He sees the harm they are doing to our body and soul and the separation they create between us and Him.

“When I refused to confess my sin, my bones wasted away and I groaned all day long.”(Ps 32:3)

The definition of Lord is someone having power, authority or influence. When we decide to turn our life choices over to God and truly desire to let Him be the Lord of our life, the world and all of it’s enticements become strangely dim.  Not only that, the peace we have in our soul is constant and it doesn’t depend on outward circumstances like parties, vacations or get-togethers with fun people- it is always with us!

This is the new life we can find in Christ. I hope you will join me in a relationship with the only One who can give us a true life!

Food For Thought,

Lisa