Weights Become Wings
Our burdens can become wings that lift us up and carry us heavenward as we learn to use them and bear them with love in our hearts.
Charles E. Cowman preaches on the concept of burdens becoming blessings in the journey of faith, using the analogy of birds receiving wings to soar. He emphasizes how our duties and tasks are designed by God to lift us up and carry us closer to Him, even though they may initially seem heavy and burdensome. By embracing our responsibilities with love and a willing heart, we can experience transformation as our burdens turn into wings that help us rise and soar towards God, ultimately leading to growth and blessings.
Text
"They shall mount up with wings as eagles" (Isa.40:31).
There is a fable about the way the birds got their wings at the beginning. They were first made without wings. Then God made the wings and put them down before the wingless birds and said to them, "Come, take up these burdens and bear them."
The birds had lovely plumage and sweet voices; they could sing, and their feathers gleamed in the sunshine, but they could not soar in the air. They hesitated at first when bidden to take up the burdens that lay at their feet, but soon they obeyed, and taking up the wings in their beaks, laid them on their shoulders to carry them.
For a little while the load seemed heavy and hard to bear, but presently, as they went on carrying the burdens, folding them over their hearts, the wings grew fast to their little bodies, and soon they discovered how to use them, and were lifted by them up into the air--the weights became wings.
It is a parable. We are the wingless birds, and our duties and tasks are the pinions God has made to lift us up and carry us heavenward. We look at our burdens and heavy loads, and shrink from them; but as we lift them and bind them about our hearts, they become wings, and on them we rise and soar toward God.
There is no burden which, if we lift it cheerfully and bear it with love in our hearts, will not become a blessing to us. God means our tasks to be our helpers; to refuse to bend our shoulders to receive a load, is to decline a new opportunity for growth. --J. R. Miller
Blessed is any weight, however overwhelming, which God has been so good as to fasten with His own hand upon our shoulders. F. W. Faber
Sermon Outline
- The Parable of the Birds
- The Process of Transformation
- The Result of Transformation
- We rise and soar toward God
- Our burdens become blessings
Key Quotes
“They shall mount up with wings as eagles” — Charles E. Cowman
“Blessed is any weight, however overwhelming, which God has been so good as to fasten with His own hand upon our shoulders.” — Charles E. Cowman
“There is no burden which, if we lift it cheerfully and bear it with love in our hearts, will not become a blessing to us.” — Charles E. Cowman
Application Points
- We should approach our duties and tasks with a cheerful heart, knowing that they can become the means by which we rise and soar toward God.
- We should not shrink from our burdens, but rather see them as opportunities for growth and transformation.
- We should bear our burdens with love in our hearts, knowing that they can become blessings to us.