By Tim Massengale
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The American Indians tell a parable of a brave who 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 as one of them.
All his life, the changeling eagle, thinking he was prairie chicken, did what 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 slurry of feathers no more than a few feet off the ground. After all, that’s how prairie chickens are supposed to fly.
Years passed and the changeling eagle grew older. One day, he saw a magnificent bird far above him in cloudless sky. Hanging with graceful majesty on the powerful wind currents, it soared with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.
“What a beautiful bird!” said the changeling eagle to his neighbor. “What is it?”
“That’s an eagle – the chief of birds,” the neighbor clucked. “But don’t give it a second thought. You could never be like him.”
So the changeling eagle never gave it another thought. And it died thinking it was a prairie chicken.
Success Involves Risk
What a tragedy! Built to soar into the heavens, but conditioned to remain earthbound, the young eagle pecked at stray seeds and chased insects. Though designed by God to be among the most awesome of all birds, he instead believed his neighbor’s counsel: “You’re only a prairie chicken . . . come on, let’s go find some insects.”
Right now, you may be finding yourself in a situation much like that of the changeling eagle. You know God has empowered you with the ability to have a far greater church than you have right now. You know you are filled with a Spirit which enables you to reach and obtain the impossible. But for some reason, a voice in the back of your mind keeps saying, “But you are only a Pentecostal. You’ve always been small. What hope is there of growing now?”
You try to shrug off the voice of the enemy, yet he persists, “It’s so much easier to scavenge for insects than to soar among the heavens. It’s so much simper to just do like everyone else than to venture out and risk failure.”
Of course it is. It’s also easier to read book after book and attend seminar after seminar on “How to do it” than to sit down, roll up your shirt sleeves, and get the job done.
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