Jo Saxton

Are you a Pigeon or an Eagle?

It’s probably not a question you’ve been asked before, but I think I know which most people would rather be. Recently God called me to leave my pigeon ways behind and rise to the heights of the eagle.

See it’s all about rest, resting, peace. I went all the way to the USA to learn this lesson. Well, who am I trying to kid, it was just the start of a process of God calling me into a place of rest. You see I thought when I was there I was resting, I was chilling out, hanging with an old friend, enjoying not doing that much. In my book “resting”. But as my first day back at work hit me like a ton of bricks, it turns out that what I thought had been “resting” had simply been taking a break from life. I put on hold the things that were difficult, challenging, painful. I left them on the runway but, you guessed it, they were still there when I got back.

Revelation: taking a break from something, not thinking about it or engaging with it is not the same as resting.

Resting is not the absence of work but the presence of peace.

My break from life took place in Northern California, which isn’t all beaches and surf but mountains and valleys. Flying over these valleys are amazing bids of prey, don’t ask me what they are, I’m no David Attenborough (Nature Man). But I watched them for hours, soaring, gliding so effortlessly, they would catch a lift and soar high, wings stretched wide. Most of the time I don’t look like a soaring, graceful, peaceful eagle. I more accurately reflect a flapping pigeon that can’t quite make up its mind which direction to walk in.

But I want to be the eagle. I am willing to put my pigeon ways behind me. I have to because it’s un-peaceful and stressful. For me becoming like the eagle is about surrender and faith.

Jesus implies you can be at rest even when everything is going crazy around you. He slept in the midst of a storm. He talks about rest for the soul. My soul was not rested, my body maybe, but not my soul. So now I’m working out how I live from a place where my soul is rested.  Jesus, immediately after he says “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”, follows this with “Take my yoke upon you AND LEARN FROM ME”. So I’m trying to learn from him, looking to Jesus to see how he rests. What I’m seeing so far is that the place of rest is in the presence of the Father. A place where there is stillness, calm, peace and dependency and although in the midst of busy, not allowing the busy and the challenge to rule. Instead, allowing the peace and the rested soul to be the well from which I work, not the stress and the pressure.  Believing that close to him, resting in him means that I will be more fruitful in the long run. I know that right up close to Jesus there is rest and restoration for my soul. That there he gives me the grace to fly.

By Ally Proudfoot.