Dear Faith Family, 

Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high? (Job 39:27). 

You’ll find Mr. North and DNF (Mrs. North) perched high up in a white oak tree just across a creek from a cattle herd in Decorah, Iowa.  They share the parenting load taking turns keeping their encapsulated young’uns warm.  In fact, both parents have what’s called a brooding patch.  Hormones start acting up.  Feathers fall out.  Blood vessels congregate.  Both Mr. and Mrs. form a patch of bare skin (brooding patch) under which their young are warmed. 

Their impressive yellow beaks highlight their strength.  I’ve watched (online web cam) their power as they’ve devoured their prey.  And I’ve watched the tender care with those same beaks carefully turn their eggs every hour or two.  And that nest?  It weighs in at somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 pounds! 

Today is the anticipated hatch day.  The live cam as we speak features one of the parents covering two eggs shielding them from the ice that has fallen on his/her back. 

So, what’s the point?  I mean other than a fascination with eagles?  Well, you know the story of Job, right?  Old Testament.  The poster child for long-suffering.  And when he did come to wrestle out loud with God, God sat Job down and pretty much gave him a lecture, rhetorical questions included. 

In the midst of the Lord answering Job out of the whirlwind, one of the rhetorical questions He asked had to do with the eagles.  Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high? 

Two things can happen when we are confronted by the Word of God.  One: we have an opportunity to realize how small we really are.  Quite frankly, we have nothing to do with commanding eagles.  We don’t offer raptor classes on the fine art of nest building.  We provide absolutely no graduate degrees in parenting eaglets.  And I don’t think we even offer an annual conference on how to catch and prepare meals as an eagle in today’s world. 

Two: we have an opportunity to realize how big God really is!  Not only did He create Mr. North and DNF but He taught them everything they know.  He is the sovereign commander of the two of them and their two young’uns.  Not to mention the other 300,000 plus bald eagles that fly the friendly skies of the lower 48 states!  Oh, and they’re just one of more than 60 different species of eagles worldwide.  We could go on.  But I think we’re starting to get the picture.  Our God is really big! 

When life seems out of control (our control).  When we encounter difficulty.  We need to be reminded that our God is really big.  He not only can handle what concerns us, He is handling what concerns us.  Our ability to understand may just match our ability to command the eagles.  But His ability to understand and command? – well just watch His eagles. 

Learning how to trust, 

Pastor Karl