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Stepping out in Faith/Lifted up like Eagles

on growing wings of faith

Dawn Duryea

Mar 2, 2026

 

Genesis 12:1-4a

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him.

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     I have been thinking about how in life you don’t get a do over. The arrow of time only travels in one direction and that makes me draw the connection between a life that must be lived forward and performance art.

     The thing is that when you see an artist performing, whether it be a musician, an actor, or a figure skater – that performance is just the tip of the iceberg – it is the icing on the cake of hard work – hours and hours of practice – getting up at 5 am – skating when you’d rather be sleeping. The bulk of your time dedicated to training. And it all comes down to this ONE performance. There’s a lot riding on that short time on the ice – in less than 5 minutes you will find out if you achieved your dreams or if they will come crashing down around you.

     So, do you play it safe? Do something you’ve done a hundred times and know will work? Or do you take advantage of your turn in the spotlight and reach for the golden ring – show off your skills and really shine?

     That’s kind of like the choice Abraham was faced with in our reading from Genesis. God says “Go to this land I will show you” and Abraham immediately agrees to leave his homeland, his father and all the people he knows, to go where he’s never been, to follow a God he hardly knows. He steps out of his well-trodden ways to take a chance and forge new pathways in the world.

     In life you can have peace and security by staying in your well traveled lanes and keeping yourself away from people who disagree with you – but – this way of living may not be worth it in the end. Boring routines are not that exciting and always get low scores in figure skating. If you want to score big – you are going to have to take a chance on life. The more difficult the routine – the more points you get – IF you land on your feet.

     That’s one reason, I think, why older people are so wise. They have lots of experience in the performance arena. That’s where wisdom comes from – from living life and surviving to tell the tale.

     Performance is a scary thing – a time of judgement – what will people think? Will they like it? Did I do a good enough job to move forward?

     But it’s one thing to perform a written thing, a thing set in stone, like a figure skating routine or classical music piece and it’s something completely different when the element of improvisation is added in.

I remember in high school that I was nervous enough to play a solo during Wind Ensemble but if I ever had to do a solo in Jazz Band I was terrified. Because a jazz solo is not a WRITTEN thing, it’s not thing set in stone, it’s a LIVING thing, a thing born of the spirit of performance art.

     And a jazz performance is like a thing that only lives once and dies – living on only in your memory – every performance is different - even with the SAME band playing the SAME set later on the SAME day.

     You can hear how this element of improvisation echoes through our short life on earth.

     I don’t know about you, but I often feel like I am SURFING on the great ocean of life. Most of the time I am enjoying being in the sun and feeling the wind in my hair. The smell of saltwater fills my whole being with happiness. The everyday currents of life are enough to keep me interested as I am moving all the time and the view is amazing! I see different kinds of fish - dolphins and whales breach the surface and sometimes I even see some birds overhead like the long traveling albatross. Every once in a while, a storm comes to test my skills and pelts me with rain, the wind threatens to upend my board. And occasionally there comes a tsunami that swallows me whole and I go down into the ocean, struggling to make it back to the surface so that I can take a breath, waterlogged and exhausted I must regain my board and my equilibrium.

     Reminding me once again that I am not the One in control.

     I may have mentioned before that I really like BIRDS. I’m a bird watcher. I like to watch the birds at the feeder, happily gobbling up the assortment of seeds I have laid out as an offering to them. I like to watch the birds in the trees, chittering away to each other – they sound like they are having a party up there! I eagerly watch for birds as I am driving down the road and often I am rewarded with the sight of a meadowlark on a fence line or a hawk perched in the top of a tree scouting for his next meal. But my absolute favorite thing about birds is to watch them in flight.

     Birds all fly differently. Some, like ducks and turkeys flap, flap flap, struggling to overcome gravity, others like woodpeckers and goldfinches flap and swoop in a curious pattern. Swallows are a joy to watch as they acrobatically maneuver to catch their evening meal on the wing and hummingbirds just mesmerize me with their invisible buzzing wings. Then there are the EAGLES. Eagles rise above the crowd not only because of their size, some of the largest birds in the air, but also because of their effortless soaring flight. If you ever need an image of peace – picture an eagle riding the thermals, soaring high above the concerns of everyday life – supported and guided by their unbroken relationship with the wind (atonement).

     The flight of birds is something WONDERFUL to behold. It must have been this natural wonder, this everyday miracle, that inspired Daedalus to craft the wings of the ill-fated Icarus, Leonardo Da Vinci to draw prototypical helicopters in his journals, early balloonists to imagine other ways lift might be achieved through hot air, Ferdinand von Zeppelin to create his rigid airships designed to harness the lighter than air properties of hydrogen and the Wright brothers to put fixed wings on a bicycle. Inspired, humans took to the skies, to push the limits of human experience – to go where no one had gone before.

     Abraham must have felt this same excitement as he embarked on his journey to this unknown land. No one he knew had ever been there, maybe they had not even heard anything about it. He was following in the footsteps of faith.

I once read – I think it was one of those inspirational things on Facebook - that birds aren’t afraid of the branch breaking because they have WINGS.

     Because their wings catch the wind and lift them up.

     Wouldn’t it be cool if we had wings?

     Wings that would catch the saving grace of God’s love and lift us up – soaring smoothly through the currents of life like majestic eagles.

     This time of Lent as we turn our attention toward the cross we may ask ourselves, what does it all mean? Why did Jesus die for me? Why couldn’t God just forgive us without all the theatrics of the crucifixion?

In his book, Why Did Jesus Have to Die? Adam Hamilton examines many ways the church has struggled to answer these questions since the death of Jesus. It may surprise you to learn that he never fully explained it to his disciples only indicating that it was necessary (i.e. Matthew 16:21).

     The crucifixion quickly becomes a focal point for the new religion, somehow, they know it is important even though they struggle to explain it fully. Adam Hamilton suggests we see the crucifixion as a Word from God. So, instead of asking HOW it works, the question might be better phrased as, “What is God trying to say to us in the message of the cross?”

Because God’s JUSTICE is strong, terrible, austere – a bright shining thing that burns away all that is not holy - and we are RIGHT to fear the Lord. This justice relates to the holiness of God. When you read the Old Testament stories in light of the HOLINESS of God and not the VENGEANCE of God – it makes a huge difference! It changes the way you interpret God’s actions. Even so, we must always remember God’s MERCY is so much greater than God’s desire for justice and we can tell that by taking note of God’s actions as remembered in the stories of the Bible.

     We sin and we deserve punishment – but instead of punishing us as we deserve – God provides the required sacrifice like in the case of Isaac. We have need of FORGIVENESS and FORGIVENESS is supplied. It is not wrath that radiates from our Heavenly Father but Love.

     It is the kind of Love which seeks a higher standard for humanity – a HOLY standard. Like how a parent sets standards of conduct for their children, so our Heavenly Father does the same. The heavenly standard being so high and out of reach of ordinary humans. Still, there are PROPER attitudes and there are IMPROPER attitudes, there are PROPER ways of being and there are IMPROPER ways of being. But even when we fall short, as we often do, God STILL loves us.

The Love of God is not dependent on right BEHAVIORS, we can do…well, pretty much anything…and God will STILL love us. That kind of love CHANGES people. So, Jesus’s death on the cross wasn’t a payment for our debt owed, it didn’t BUY anything – it was an action of LOVE.

     Because God’s love isn’t TRANSACTIONAL – it’s TRANSFORMATIONAL.

     Human love ASPIRES to be unconditional but so many times I hear stories about how relationships are severed because one person did something the other person didn’t like – ESPECIALLY within families – I hear this more often than I like. My own relationship with my first mother-in-law suffered tremendously after my current husband decided to adopt my children after we married and we changed their last name. She felt betrayed that I would allow her son’s name to be erased. And I understood her objections, but I felt I was doing what was best for my kids and my new husband by uniting us as a family under one name.

     I never stopped loving her and it hurt me so much when she pulled away and no longer spoke freely with me. It seems her love was not freely given but only available to those who complied with her wishes. And that hurts. Human beings are capable of SO MUCH HARM in the pursuit of self-interest.

     Just like in the Garden – the temptation to serve yourself cannot be easily overcome. Some say that PRIDE was the original sin in the Garden - the Original Sin of humanity - the KING of sins – the Ruler of this world.

As disciples, we are often called to leave our comfortable places, to step out in faith and follow where God leads. Sometimes this means leaving our PHYSICAL homeland like Abraham and sometimes it means leaving METAPHORICAL homelands, those places where our mind lives among the familiar landscape of well-worn concepts and ways of understanding things that are so finely molded to the shape of our minds and drape our forms in such a flattering way that it would be a shame to discard them.

     Every day we must step out in faith, because we never know what we might meet when we step outside of our door - that’s the element of the unknown – and everyday we rely on our ability to improv, our ability to navigate the waves that life sends our way - but that’s what keeps life exciting!

When we have faith in God’s love it’s like we have WINGS. All those fine feathers to catch the movement of the Holy Spirit. We would never notice it without faith, but with FAITH we feel lifted up – up above the everyday bumps and bruises - able to skate smoothly through every turn – and yes, sometimes we get knocked down and our wings get waterlogged and it takes time for them to dry out but once they do – just watch out! – we will be able to spread our wings again and be lifted up like eagles – soaring higher and higher – where peace and tranquility live and we are ONE with our God.

     So, spread your wings and fly.

 

Prayer

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God of promise:

You ask me to leave home and the places I know to seek you in a new land, help me to trust that you will bless me so that I may be a blessing to others no matter where you lead me. You are close to me no matter what my works, fasts, prayers, offerings or spiritual growth may be. Teach me to see the blessings of faith as a GIFT and not a TRANSACTION. AMEN

[Connections Worship Companion]