Learning To Fly

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:9

This afternoon I watched a bird teaching her baby to fly. The pair caught my attention when the little one plummeted, squawking, from a nearby tree onto my roof. The parental unit (mother or father, I don't know but will assume mother) had a bit of trouble here. Seems little guy was not pleased with the process, because he clung stubbornly to the edge of the gutter. After a good deal of pushing and pecking and yelling, his mother managed to force him off. Awkwardly, and more than a little frantically, he winged his way to the lower branches of another tree...until she chased him from there, too.

Now, judging by his vocalization and resistance, this was not a pleasant experience for the young bird. From my own experience, being in the air with nothing solid beneath one's feet is generally an uncomfortable feeling. It tends to inspire fear and uncertainty. But no bird can survive without learning to fly. Uncomfortable or frightening though it may be, it is undoubtedly a good thing for the bird.

Sometimes God has to treat us the way this mother bird treated her young one. He has to poke and prod and push us; sometimes right off the edge. It's not fun. It's not pleasant. It can be scary and briming with uncertainty. But it is ultimately good for us. We may not see that in the moment; but after those first frantic moments (days, weeks, years...), and after the initial awkward flapping of our unpracticed wings becomes normal and natural, we will be better for it.