When God Gets Pushy

“He guarded him  . . . 

like an eagle

that stirs up its nest 

and hovers over its young,

that spreads its wings to catch them

and carries them on its feathers.”

Deuteronomy 32:11

I tend to avoid pushy people.  They ruffle my feathers.  But when God gets pushy,  . . . I’ve learned that I’d best pay attention.   I know I’m not going to win that fight.

There’s a huge old gnarly tree about 3 miles from my house, and in it is a massive  nest,  Eagles.  Every year, the eagle pair adds to the huge thing, and soon I  begin seeing the babies being cared for by the attentive parents.  They truly do “hover” over their little ones, and continue to stay with them for the entire summer.  It isn’t that long before the young eagles are nearly the size of the parents, yet they continue all sharing that family nest until late Fall.  

God takes care of us that way.  Nurturing, protecting, and staying very near in our beginning stages of being His.  Then there’s a gradual “weaning” us off of our total dependency, and we have to learn some lessons from experience.  

When it comes time to begin strengthening our wings and learning to fly, God begins to get ‘pushy,’ like the eagle parent.  He starts moving us to the edge, and with a nudge…we’re out there.  Over the edge, flapping like crazy.  As the free-fall begins, He swoops in and carries us away from the pending crash.  Again and again, we get the nudge, without our permission, and freak out in panic.  Again and again, He catches us on His wings…and we grab onto His feathers, gradually learning how amazing it is to be flying with Him.  The landscape broadens . . . the sky beyond our branches is amazing, and the wonder of the ride draws us into venturing out on our own.  Scary, but we begin to learn how to “do it better” next time.  

If He didn’t love us, He wouldn’t push us.  And we’d sit out our lives in the big old picky nest.  Not much of a view.  

But He wants us to experience the wonder of soaring high.  Where He is.

What’s God nudging you to do?  For me it has seemed like that cycle has repeated many times in my life.  And I am the richer for it.  Though those flight lessons are scary, very scary, the View from above … seeing what He sees … doing it with Him,  has been worth it all.

And best of all, . . . . He is there.