A friend of mine has trouble with Japanese bonsai trees because she sees tiny trees with great potential inhibited because they have been root-bound by man. Others have trouble seeing animals and birds trapped in cages for the same reason. For example, how do eagles feel in cages in zoos? These magnificent birds, designed to soar to the heights of mountaintops, do they get frustrated? Are they fulfilled?

Too many of us, who were also designed to reach our total God-given human and spiritual potential, are trapped in a cage of our own or of another’s making. We fail to resolve the problems in our life that hold us back. True, we may have been wounded in the past, but God wants us to be healed, to be made whole, to be free to fly, and to soar like the eagles.

We have a choice: we can “scratch in the dirt with the turkeys” or we can wait (seek after and hope in) the Lord God and rise up to fly with the eagles to the heights that God envisioned for us to reach.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to wait on You to renew my strength so that, with Your help, I will see my God-given life purpose and ‘fly’ to reach the full potential You have planned for me to achieve. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’s name, amen.”

1. Isaiah 40:31 (TLB).