My senior year of high school, I was very restless. Life was changing around me more quickly than I could grasp it, and even though my home, my church, and my school were all I had ever known, I was losing my attachment to those things. I was losing my desire to stay there. I was ready to move on.
My mom would tell me that God was like an eagle “stirring the nest.” This comparison actually comes from the Bible.
Deuteronomy 32:11
As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings:
In this passage, Moses is talking about how God treated the children of Israel. But what does it mean for a mother eagle to stir up her nest?
When the time comes for an eaglet to leave the nest, the parents begin to make the nest less comfortable. They stop bringing food to the nest so frequently. The eagles are not neglecting their baby; they are doing what is necessary to motivate the eaglet to move on to greater things, like flying.
I’ve found that God does this for me whenever it’s His time for me to move on to the next thing He has for me. However, recently I’ve been uncomfortable, not with my situation in life, but just with this world in general. A worldwide pandemic has a way of changing the things in life that make us comfortable. It’s left me hungry for something more.
I believe with my whole heart that God has been stirring my nest to create a greater longing in my heart for heaven. I believe He could come any day. I don’t have this belief just because of my current circumstances; I believe this because the Bible says we should always be ready because we don’t know when Jesus is coming.
Matthew 24:44
Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.
The Bible also says that we should be watching for Jesus to return.
Mark 13:35
Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning:
Have you been watching? I know I haven’t the way I should. But God has used my current circumstances to stir the nest a little and make me just uncomfortable enough that I have His coming on my mind. I’m not making a prediction that Jesus will come back in a specific time frame; no one knows when He will come back.
Matthew 24:36
But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
However, I do know that He is coming “soon.” I don’t know what that means exactly, but I do know that I want to be watching. I’m glad He’s stirring the nest a bit; I’m ready to take flight to the incredible future He has for me in heaven!
Revelation 22:20
He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.