In one of His books, Chuck Swindoll reminds us of a story from American Indian lore. It begins with an Indian brave that happened to find an egg laid by an eagle. The brave wanted to return the egg to an eagle’s nest, but could not figure out how to do that. He finally decided to place the egg in the nest of a prairie chicken. That way, the mother hen could sit on the eagle’s egg, along with her own eggs, until the eaglet was hatched successfully alongside the prairie chickens.
All his life, the changeling eagle, thinking he was a prairie chicken, did what the 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 flurry of feathers no more than a few feet off the ground. After all, that’s how prairie chickens were supposed to fly. Years passed and the changeling eagle grew old. One day, he saw a magnificent bird far above him in the 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 eagle to his neighbor. “What is it?” “That’s an eagle–the chief of the 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.
I hate that story. It is depressing. But the truth is, so many people never know who they really are, or who they could become. They have been told they can never be more than what they currently are, and never give it a second thought. They live and die in that state of “this is what I am.” They listen to one who believes that, and sadly accept it as truth.
But Jesus said, “I am come that you might have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10., and that is the real truth of life. However, if we don’t hear the truth from someone who knows, we may indeed never give it a second thought. Jesus came down from heaven to let it be known that each of us can be born again into one who can soar like an eagle – no matter who we are. We can fly to heights we never dreamed of if we allow Christ to define us and tell us who we really are in Him.