The following illustration has been around the email circuit for quite a while but it is a good reminder. Also, there are different versions of this story, but they all make an excellent point.

A man found an eagle’s egg and put it into the nest of a prairie chicken. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them.

All his life, the eagle, thinking he was a prairie chicken, did whatever the other prairie chickens did. He scratched in the dirt for seeds and insects to eat. He clucked and cackled. And he flew in a brief thrashing of wings and flurry of feathers no more than a few feet off the ground. After all, that’s how prairie chickens were supposed to fly.

Years passed. The eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird far above him in the cloudless sky. Hanging with graceful majesty on the powerful wind currents, it soared with scarcely a beat of its strong wooden wings.

“What a beautiful bird!” said the eagle to his neighbor. “What is it?”

“That’s an eagle—the chief of the birds,” the neighbor clucked. “But don’t give it a second thought. You could never be like him.”

And so the eagle, thinking he was just a prairie chicken and not able to soar into the heights, lived his life groveling and picking at the ground, never experiencing the exhilaration of flight and the majesty which was his by birthright.

Tragically, this is the picture of many Christians today. With the God-given ability to “soar on wings like eagles,” as Isaiah wrote, they fail to take advantage of the abilities and blessings that God has prepared for all who truly hope and trust in him.

Let each of us determine that, with God’s help, this will not be our fate, but rather that we will be like eagles and become and do all that God has planned and envisioned for us to become and do, and therein reach our God-given potential—and reap the rewards for all eternity.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you for your Word that assures me that if I put my hope and trust in you, I will be able to ‘soar on wings like eagles’ and fulfill my God-given potential. Help me, God, so to do. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Isaiah 40:31 (NIV).