HOW TO BE COURAGEOUS

Maybe you heard the story about a farmer one spring who enjoyed watching two eagles flying near a distant bluff. After failing to see the eagles for a couple of days he went to investigate and he found an abandoned nest that held an egg which he took back to the farm. With the faint hope that it might hatch and a baby eagle grow up and fly, he placed the egg in a nest in the farm house. Two weeks later the egg did hatch and the strange looking baby eagle joined the chickens in the yard of the hen house. And as the first days passed, the eaglet learned the habits of the chickens, feeding on the corn provided by the farmers.

Noticing birds flying overhead one beautiful morning the eaglet remarked, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to fly like that. I wish I could fly.” But you know how chickens are. They quickly admonished this foolish thinking. “You’re a chicken,” they said, “You’re not meant to fly.” The fearful mother hen said, “If you try to fly you will surely get caught in the chicken wire and you’ll break your neck.“ And the strutting rooster father added logically, “Even if you did fly over the fence, it would be hard to find food and you’d probably starve. Don’t come back here looking for food if you do.” And all the chickens agreed the baby eagle should not try to fly.

“It sure would be wonderful to fly and soar like that. I wish I could do it.” But he didn’t try. He believed the chickens. And as the days and weeks passed the eaglet said little about flying. He spent more time alone, isolated in the hen house. And then one day the farmer noticed that the eaglet was no longer in the chicken yard. He hoped the eaglet had grown big enough to fly away and so he went in to investigate. The hen house was dark. He turned on the light and noticed a clump of feathers over in the corner. He picked it up and discovered that it was the young eagle. The eaglet was dead.

The story is sad because the eaglet saw his dreams in the birds flying overhead and if he’d only tried, he too could have flown. But instead, he listened to the chickens and he died without ever fulfilling his true identity.

It is the gravitational attraction of the familiar that pulls us away from becoming what we want to be, what we ought to be, what God wants us to be. Take a step of courage, listen to this 21 minute sermon and break out of this gravitational attraction of the familiar. Dreams are not achieved automatically. Our dreams happen in the face of fear and always with resistance from the chickens. What is it that you need to do that takes courage? What step do you need to take in your life that is going to require you to quit listening to the chickens in your life?