Growing up, my family, for about a year, decided to have a chicken coop. One of my smaller childhood memories is of me waiting until my dad got home to go to the chicken coop. We would go together and fill pales with eggs and feed our chickens.
When you open the door of a typical southern style chicken coop you will first see the mass amounts of chicken poop all over the ground. Next, you'll observe the chickens constantly pecking at the ground in hopes to find something to eat.
As I've grown up I've realized that many people go through life without any hope or dreams. I, myself have always tended to be a dreamer. Since the third grade I would walk to career day in hopes that my career would surpass all the others in my elementary class. Number one, I wanted to make the most money. Two, I wanted to dress cute. Three, I wanted a fancy title. Before that I remember playing with Barbies, and dreaming of my Prince Charming Ken look-a-like that would appear on a white horse- sweep me off my feet and marry me. I would raise kids that were beautiful, smart, and well behaved.
But, it wasn't until one of my past relationships when I was going over my list of life plans. The guy told me, "Life never goes as planned." He was right. But, somewhere in that line, I realized I probably should stop dreaming... and that is exactly what I did. For a year or so, I have gone through life without a dream. I've not only realized that my happiness was placed in a dream, a hope of a better tomorrow.. I realized that it was stupid to have dwarf minded thinking and to stop dreaming all together. So I made a list. A list in my head of dreams that I wanted to obtain. I moved beyond pettiness and started thinking in an altitude into powerful thinking.
As I go through life and the obstacles at which it brings. I believe that God hides the answers to the questions we all want answered in higher places so that only eagles can find them and be nourished by them. The problem is that too many of us flounder as chickens rather than fly as eagles. While eagles soar and scan the skies, chickens are busy looking down and eating off the ground. Yes, they do survive from lower-level consumption, but they don't fly far or do much because they're too busy pecking at the ground below them. They never move beyond lower thinking into the power of spreading their wings like eagles and flying high.
Are you choosing to eat small-kernel thoughts off the ground, or will you seek the mountainous summits of success with those who overcome the giants of life and rise above a storm? As tasty as chicken may be to those of us who consume it, always remember that chickens eat mostly waste. Their overhead counterparts are too high to consume what was; eagles only eat what is.
Life is filled with giants and chickens live in fear of them. Especially with their heads looking down, they could be squashed, decapitated, or destroyed. Their vulnerability is that they remain within the reach of the giants of possible destruction. Giants only fight what they can reach. They only find the treasure that lies in low places. So chickens and those who have chicken ideas are always in the reach of those who seek to destroy them.
If you have lived with chickens but thought like an eagle, it is only a matter of time before someone will see the eagle in you and allow you to spread your wings and fly higher. But, keep in mind, if you want to go for it as an eagle, you must let go of the chicken's perspective. Don't let the giant problems, budget restrictions, or even legitimate excuses deter your dreams and overpower your passions. You may start on the ground, but for God's sake end up in the air! From the eagle's view, the giants shrink and become inconsequential. From the eagles view, new opportunities are always within sight.
Confession, I'm a closet eagle. Now, don't get me wrong, like I've said I've raised chickens, taken care of chickens, helped incubate chickens, and even eaten them. I have been told since I was sixteen that I was big fish in a small pond. I needed to get into a bigger pond where I my resource would be of value. Like the saying goes, "Iron sharpens iron." Well, I finally realized one day that living in the chicken coop as an eagle really dulled my visions. It took a hard giant to come down and shake me to realize it- but, we all are where we are in life for reason. So I fled the coop. In the past six months, I have learned more as an eagle than I ever learned as a chicken. I still talk to my chickens, but I treat them with a long-handled spoon. My past life is too small to fit me as I grow into the fullness of all that I am meant to be. It's like wearing your sixth-grade band uniform to a symphony concert at Carnegie Hall.
Are you ready to change clothes? It is my hope as we embrace the challenges of higher-level thinking that we will inevitably, both as a society and more attainable as individuals, evolve beyond the dwarfed ideas that leave us captive to what was. It is my hope that those who think at an altitude beyond attitudes will find nourishment beyond their personal chicken coop into a powerful terrain of higher thinking. Your mission- should you accept it- is to look up and consider who you are and where you are going.
For even young people tire and drop out, young folk in their prime stumble and fall.But those who wait upon God get fresh strength. They spread their wings and soar like eagles,They run and don't get tired, they walk and don't lag behind.-Isaiah 40.31
-ashleigh
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