Isaiah 40:31 led me to think about eagles. “But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
I place my hope in the Lord. In fact He’s my rock and my fortress, so if the prophet Isaiah compares people to eagles, I needed to know more about the creature.
There are more than sixty different species of eagles. They have unusually large eyes and pupils with a million light-sensitive cells per square millimeter of the retina, five times more than a human’s. Their eyesight enables them to spot a rabbit up to two miles away.
The Harpy and Philippine Eagles have wings that spread 2.5 meters across. That’s 8.2 feet, about 13 steps up a staircase or a bit over two times the length of a stride. Eagles can soar high above open plains and water. They are admired as symbols of power, freedom, and transcendence.
In Exodus 19 when the Israelites left Egypt, God instructed Moses to tell the people in verse 4, “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.” The Bible refers to eagles seven times in reference to strength and speed.
These attributes are for people who hope in the Lord. He will never disappoint us and let us down. Though we may not feel powerful or free, we are. Take the Bible’s word for it. God says in Matthew 6: 26, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” This is good news!