This story happened a few weeks ago…
While being back home I have been processing a lot of things, but this one specific image keeps coming back to my mind. 
While I was in Florida with my mom and grandpa I would take time to just go sit in a little “secret spot� and look out at the ocean. One day when I was sitting there looking out I saw a bird flying…normal, yes I know…but this was different.
It was a windy day and the bird was flying into the wind. Difficult, I would think so, but watching this bird it was gracefully moving forward. It would soar up and down, steadily moving forward, never once did it flap it’s wings, it rode the wind.
Then I notice another bird fly up behind it. This bird also flying into the wind is moving forward, but looking at it, I was tired for it. It was flapping it’s wings so hard, moving at one level, fighting the wind and not soaring with it. Trying to battle past, to get where it was going.
So for a little bit they are both moving forward in the same direction, then the one flapping it’s wings turns around and goes back where it came from.
Then I started thinking. A bird having patience, flying forward, relaxed, strong, steady, soaring. A bird working hard, moving forward, fighting, frustrated, tired, giving up. Hmmm…
Which would I want to be?
Which am I?
Now this doesn’t mean that the first bird is sitting back and letting everything happen. There were strong winds that day, and both had to push through to get to where they were going. It is the question, am I willing to stick it out in the hard times even though this flight is taking longer and is harder than I expected?
Patience.
“…we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope…” – Romans 5:3
I choose to rejoice and push through, but i want to be soaring, I don’t want to be flapping. It is by His strength, not mine, that I am made strong, that I am able to make it through those times.
