But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.  (Isaiah 40:31)

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Trees were falling, broken and wounded. The machine, crushing through a densely wooded area, dropping pines and poplars in its path, shifted forward—but, then, suddenly stopped, idling in neutral, before one dead and worthless tree, leaving it standing, as the engine roared and the machine moved ahead, felling more trees.

In the early evening, when the machine rested, an eagle came and perched at the top of this one tree that stood out against the small buffer line remaining of the once dense woods. Perhaps, there had been a nest in a nearby tree that was taken for harvesting. No nest was visible now, no eaglets ready to be born. The eagle, majestic atop the barren tree, seemed to stare intently at the surrounding land, surmising the loss. It remained in this lofty position for what seemed a lengthy time before it, finally, let go of its hold and flew away, not looking back.

Watching this scene from the drive by my home, it felt like I was viewing a symbolic enactment: The bald eagle, our national emblem, surveying the devastation; trees felled by a machine; a nest of baby eaglets possibly destroyed; nature harvested for money; beauty salvaged without conscience; a young man with goggles, vision somewhat blurred, maneuvering a machine capable of destroying the present and the future; man, the driving force behind it all. It seemed like a warning, one that we have disregarded with careless neglect and indifference to the negative effects we can impose on our present and our future worlds.

As I watched this scene play out, I recalled another warning that was unheeded:

³⁴ “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. ³⁵ Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see Me again until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.’” (Luke 13:34-35)

A disregarded warning, affecting both the present and the future–Jerusalem was destroyed.

And what of America? Will we continue to care more about money and greed than our young and our unborn? Will we not tend and nurture this world which God gave to us as its caretakers? Will we allow technology to blur our moral conscience? Will we continue to disregard the offer of Jesus to come onto Him, to follow Him, to obey Him, to allow Him to take us under His arms of protection?  Do we, in this country, have this same rebuke: “You were not willing.” Will we, in this country, have this same end: “Look, your house is left to you desolate.”

“The eagle represents freedom. Living as he does on the tops of lofty mountains, amid the solitary grandeur of Nature, he has unlimited freedom, whether with strong pinions he sweeps into the valleys below, or upward into the boundless spaces beyond.”   (baldeagleinfo.com)

We, too, can have freedom in Jesus who set us free from a dead tree, the cross. On this Fourth of July, a day designated to remember and celebrate our independence, let us pray that we will not merely perch and sit and sit in a worried state of mind over the fate of this nation, but let us instead, like the eagle who did not dwell in that dead tree, take action, move forward, and “mount up with wings like eagles…run and not be weary…walk and not faint.” We are the ones who can make positive changes in our world, through our daily walk with the Lord, who did not stay on the tree but arose and yet lives that we might be free.

(Sharon G. Tate blog 06/30/19 blog)  teacherforjesus.com  Meditations on God’s Word