Today, we continue our thoughts from last week’s blog concerning how “Eagles Know the Wind As Christians Know the Spirit.” In that blog, we discussed how the Sun, symbolic of the Son of God, generates the winds of earth, and how these winds emulate the way the Spirit of God responds to the reactions of people to the person of Jesus.
Eagles have an intimate relationship to wind, that appears effortless and simple natural due to the giftedness and instinctive behaviors God has given them. However, if we look at what it takes for humans to imitate this natural affinity, we gain a tremendous respect for the ability of eagles and become inspired to have that same intimacy with the Holy Spirit.
Intimate Knowledge of the Wind is Like Knowing the Spirit
To know the wind intimately is to know much more than wind direction and weather effects. As hang gliders have studied the ways of the wind, their capabilities have increased dramatically. In the 1970s competition pilots in that sport strove to achieve a flight exceeding the one-hundred-mile barrier. Today, the distance record stands in excess of four hundred miles! And such amazing distance, relying only on the lift provided by the wind, is often achieved by launching from a gentle slope only a few hundred feet up, then catching wind rising over mountains and ridges or traveling upward in columns of thermally driven air. Altitudes of over thirty-eight thousand feet are possible with the use of an oxygen bottle.
To know the wind is to know the diverse ground features that most reliably emit thermal-producing heat and updrafts. It is to know the art of staying tightly in a thermal column, going neither too quickly nor too slowly, soaring hundreds of feet per minute, while pilots of lesser skills only climb at a fraction of that rate. It is the art of launching a hang glider with a sink rate of two hundred feet per minute off of an eight hundred foot hillside, yet staying aloft for hours. It is knowing that thermals arise at times from a single source, like a rock quarry, releasing periodically, then drifting down wind to form a street of evenly spaced thermal lift points stretching for miles. It is to know at other times the thermal is a stationary column that rises many thousands of feet. It is to know that the cumulus cloud atop a thermal can literally suck you in, disorient you, and cause you to crash thousands of feet below. It is to know how to avoid the zones of strong sink that are always adjacent to areas of strong thermal lift. It is to know that strong wind approaching a ridge blows up in useful lift, but that it may go around a mountain. It is to know that mountaintops sometimes produce lea waves that can cause one to soar thousands of feet higher and sometimes carry you hundreds of miles. It is to overcome the fear of never being able to land once you are in such a lea wave. It is also to know that just below the level of lea-wave bounce is a zone of rotors that will grip your craft and send you hurtling to disaster. It is to know that crossing a valley in midday takes you out of a lift zone and into sink, but that toward evening warm air flowing down the mountain can turn the valleys into zones of “magic lift.”
Hidden In Plain Site
Psalm 91, which has been our inspiration for likening an eagle to the Holy Spirit, has a number of places where the believer is hidden in God, safe, sound and protected. In my book, Heaven’s Eagle, there is the analogy of being hidden in the egg, and the formation of dreams and calling that are part of the believer’s experience “in the egg.” We also show the protection of mother and father eagle over their young as they dwell in the nest, so analogous to the church. We further look at the covering with feathers that speaks of the anointing and covering of the Holy Spirit, enduing us with His power. And now we see a hiddenness of a different sort.
Glider pilots have written of the tranquility of being aloft in a modern sail plane. Without any sort of engine, these craft are towed into the sky by a propeller-driven plane, and then released to ride the winds. The experience is surreal, the quietness sublime. The pilot rides his large craft, having only the wind as a support to hold him in the sky. He points the nose of the craft slightly downward in order to maintain speed, yet he finds sources of lift that take him further skyward. As he circles in a thermal, the pilot looks through his large glass canopy, searching for areas of lift, observing keenly the sky for signs of soaring birds or circulating debris riding an updraft. He also watches the terrain for land features that would signal the presence of rising air.
As he circles, he is very aware of much of what is taking place on earth below, yet highways are pencil lines of gray where tractor trailers can be discerned, but automobiles are invisible. Even on a completely clear day there is a milkiness to the air as he looks thousands of feet below. Then he looks off to his wingtip and sees a hawk or an eagle gliding beside him. They are not riding the winds in order to scan the vistas for prey. No, at this altitude, they are merely soaring for fun . . . for rest. They are hidden in the sky. What greater peace and solitude than to effortlessly ride a carpet of air? What greater protection from foes? Truly, when Psalm 91 talks about, “He will command his angels* concerning you to guard you in all your ways” ( verse 11), it is speaking of another place where we are protected, yes, hidden from our foes . . . in this case, hidden far above the reach of most enemies.
Here, the hiding and protection of the Christian following Heaven’s Eagle, the Holy Spirit, involves an element of freedom that we have not seen conveyed in earlier portions of the psalm. Now, the Christian learning the ways of the Spirit soars on the winds of the Spirit. There is no longer the confinement of the egg. There is no longer the persecution and struggle that can attend the nest. There is no longer the threat of plucking the feathers that are intended to ride the wind. Now there is only liberty.
Next week this blog will continue the discussion of eagles and the wind.
(*For more details on how the Holy Spirit is portrayed by a mighty eagle, or how angels are typified by the wind, order a copy of my book, Heaven’s Eagle, from this website.)
