Like Eagles

Isaiah 40: 21-31 A Reflection.

It all begins in mystery;

voices in the darkness,

whispers strained after,

questions.

Do you know?

Have you heard?

Can you possibly understand even just a glimmer?

Above the vault of the heavens

and beyond the deep night,

is the point where mystery takes breath

and light begins.

The one whose love is source of all,

looks with tenderness upon everything that has been made,

numbers and names each of earth’s inhabitants

and notes their various locations.

Like grasshoppers they leap about

as they make their way.

Some rise high, use their

wealth and power

to dominate and control

they will be brought to nothing.

Like plants they sprout,

green, proud and strong,

little dreaming that one day a divine breath will come

to blow scorchingly upon them;

they wither, and are reduced to dust.

They will be carried away to nothingness,

along with their memory.

We are left to wonder at mystery,

but she evades our grasp.

Invited to make comparisons,

to identify her equal,

we find none;

we are silent.

A voice speaks to challenge:

Behold: each star in its allotted place,

each one numbered

and recorded, along with its name

in the celestial register;

they are all present, none is missing.

Can there be any mightier

than the one who has appointed them?

You who have become discouraged and fearful,

believing you have been abandoned,

that the one who called you into being is absent

and there is none to hold you to account;

you are mistaken.

You are remembered, you are known.

You were never lost;

even in this place, far from where you want to be,

the tireless mystery knows you, finds you.

Her love for you does not weaken,

His care for you is undiminished.

Those who are about to faint with fear and sorrow

will find strength.

Those who feel that they have no future

will find hope.

Laugh into the darkness,

gesture with defiance towards the night.

The beauty power of youth is a wonderful thing,

it, too will pass.

Even the fittest will grow weary and fail

and the finest athlete will become weak and exhausted.

It is those who know the presence of their maker,

who hold fast to his promises,

who trust in her love;

these will stand.

They will complete the journey that has been set before them,

they will not fall.

They will be like eagles.


©Ken Rookes 2012
This is a reflection on Isaiah 40:21-31. It's a bit of a work in progress, but I think it might be helpful in getting into the spirit of the passage.
It's Friday night and I have made some amendments!