Biography
David Handley is pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Evanston which has over two thousand members. It is extraordinarily diverse, with strong communities for single adults and university students, all the way up to retired people. Their outreach to the homeless and the needy is truly impressive. A graduate of McCormick Seminary, Dave pastored at the historical Fourth Presbyterian Church in downtown Chicago before coming to Evanston. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"Out of the Nest, Onto His Wings" 
"In the third month after the Israelites left Egypt, on the very day, they came to the desert of Sinai. After they set out from Rephidim, they entered the desert of Sinai and Israel camped there in the desert in front of the mountain. Then Moses went up to God and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said, 'This is what you are to say to the house of Jacob and what you are to tell to the people of Israel: You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.'" (Exodus 19:1-6)

In my office, across from my desk, hangs a large original piece of art which was given me on my first anniversary at our church. It is a beautiful needlepoint depiction of a majestic bald eagle, wings spread to its full, soaring on the currents. It has been a source of inspiration to me on a daily basis for at least two reasons. It refocuses my faith on two essentials. First of all on the majesty and the wonder of our God and secondly on my relationship -- our relationship -- to that God.

Consider with me, then, the eagle -- how she soars on the wings of the wind, silhouetted against a blue sky. Her mighty wings stretch eight feet from tip to tip, and the winds that blow against her only grace her flight the more, as she soars higher and higher. With one telescopic eye, she can see far down in the canyon below, watching for food for her young; while with the other she keeps her eye on the nest. Suddenly, with lightning speed, she darts down toward her nest. An intruder has tried to make gain of her absence by encroaching upon her young. He is sent scurrying away, as she swoops down with her talons extended. Her young now safe again, she soars back high on the currents to attend to her morning hunt.

A rather strange variation on this theme is witnessed when the young eaglet comes of age at 10 to 13 weeks. We see the mother eagle once again, soaring on the currents of the morning. The young eaglet begins the day like any other -- safe and comfy in its large cliff-top nest. The sun beats down to warm its feathers and chase away the chill of the night. Then suddenly, the mother eagle swoops swiftly toward her nest. But instead of the intruder, her own young is the target of her seeming attack. The unsuspecting eaglet squawks in righteous indignation as mother swoops past threateningly.

She climbs high once again, now flapping her wings. The poor little eaglet looks up aghast -- something's up. Here she comes again. As Tennyson describes it, "Like a thunderbolt she falls." Diving, diving, she buzzes past the nest, almost knocking her young out into the thin air. "Is this any way for a mother to behave?" the poor eaglet may ask. Finally, after a number of such not-too-subtle hints, with the eaglet hanging onto the nest for dear life, the mother swoops in again and hovers right over the nest, flapping her mighty wings furiously. With her talons she picks up her young and flips him into thin air!

The little eaglet is seen making an heroic go of it, pumping his little wings desperately, trying to deny the gravity that ruthlessly pulls him down. But, to no avail. The eaglet begins to plummet, down, down, down, from the cliff-top nest. And again, with lightning speed, the mother dives toward the canyon below. She swoops in beneath her struggling babe, catches him on her wings, and soars upward once again, bearing her treasure on her back. The eaglet clings tightly to those maternal feathers. But he has the ill feeling that this exercise in terror is not yet over. And sure enough, as the mother eagle soars up and up and up with her little eaglet on her back, at the appointed altitude, it's "bombs away!" and off the eaglet falls. The whole process of squawking, and flapping, and plunging, and rescuing are all repeated again, and again, and again, until those little wings are strengthened, and the eaglet begins to fly. Flight training for young eagles!

And so goes the life of faith -- your story and my story. The Bible has been an incredible inspiration to people throughout the ages, in every culture, not because it is interesting history, thought it is certainly that, but because, in an uncanny and a wonderful way, in the scripture we see our own stories being told. And so those war-weary Hebrews of the Exodus came to the wilderness of Sinai. They were about to receive their national Constitution and their spiritual mission in the Ten Commandments. They looked around them and saw nothing but desert. They hadn't asked for this! They had been lured away from Egypt by promises of "a land flowing with milk and honey." This is not what they got.

Yet now, as they paused at the foot of Sinai to reflect upon the miraculous way God had preserved them through the Red Sea, and the hunger, and the thirst, God's word came to them in a fresh and new way. And perhaps today God will touch you with a fresh insight into His strange and sometimes severe and wonderful ways.

"...you have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you to myself..."

Many years later, Moses reminded the people again of this strange and wonderful way that God operates in the lives of those who serve Him:

"Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions, so the Lord alone did lead us..." -- Deuteronomy

For those of you longing to experience the power and presence of God in your life, take note of this: there comes a time in our lives when it's "out of the nest and onto His wings," because we experience the power and presence of God in our lives when we feel most desperately out of control and most powerless to meet the challenges that face us. The saying is true: "Our extremity is God's opportunity."

Now, most often the first plunge "out of the nest and onto His wings" is an involuntary one. It comes in the form of something that happens to us. There is the death of a loved one, a troubling diagnosis, a career crisis, a financial crunch, an addiction that takes over our lives, a handicap to endure. All of the securities which have given our life structure and order and meaning have been ruthlessly torn away, and we have nothing to cling to. We start beating our own little wings, trying to keep up, but it's like defying the law of gravity and we just keep falling and falling and falling. So we reach out to God, maybe desperately. And lo and behold, to our delightful surprise, God is there to bear us up! We fell "out of the nest and onto His wings," and for the first time in our lives we soared on the wings of Faith.

Yet you did not choose this, and I did not choose this. It was not by your decision or planning or desiring. This is what Christians mean when they talk about being "chosen." An elderly woman finds herself in a most embarrassing situation. She is increasingly alarmed at how dependent she has become on a glass of wine and a valium to calm her nerves. At first it was just an innocent glass of wine at night so she could sleep and one valium during the day so she could relax, but the one glass of wine at bedtime became a couple of glasses before dinner and a couple of glasses before bedtime and then a couple of glasses after lunch and she was amazed at how that bottle of valium had emptied so soon. She found herself hiding these things from her children, who would come to visit. She would find herself hoping that the visits wouldn't last very long. She found that she was less able to look forward to social gatherings and she was more irritable with her friends. Her life was beginning to spin out of control.

Her daughter was the first one to spot it. She was the one who, out of her deep love for her mother, tossed her mother out of the nest -- confronted her with the situation. It was perhaps the hardest thing her daughter ever had to do, to humiliate her mother like that. It was perhaps the hardest thing her mother ever had to do, to swallow her pride and admit the problem and then take the scary plunge into a treatment program. But as she did this the most wonderful thing happened. She had thought she was beyond the age when anything very new and exciting could happen to her, but as she became involved in the 12 Step Program of Alcoholics Anonymous, she began to find herself being "borne up on eagle's wings." Perhaps for the first time in her life, God was more than a theory, He was a living experience and a power for her to transform her life.

Well, there's a second thing about this experience of faith. There's a saying that "there are no atheists in foxholes," and I thing that's true. But, though a "foxhole faith" is often what gets us started with God, it is never enough to keep us going with God. To change the metaphor back again, it is a thrilling experience indeed to be "borne up on eagle's wings" when we've been falling and falling and falling, but there eventually has to be the will to fly ourselves. Though the first experience "out of the nest and onto His wings" is often involuntary, to maintain an experience of God's presence and power in our lives demands a life-style of risk that is chosen.

To put it in theological language, first we are "chosen" -- it is something that happens to us -- and then we must choose -- it is something that happens through us. And so God's sovereignty and the human will are woven together in a mysterious interplay. Again, did you hear the scripture from Exodus?

"...I bore you on eagles' wings, and I brought you to myself. Now, ...if you will obey my voice and if you keep my covenant, you shall be My precious treasure, you shall be a kingdom of priests, a holy nation."

The Hebrews had been chosen. Now they had to choose. Perhaps for you tonight it's time to choose. It's time to decide to commit your life to Christ, to determine to obey the voice of God as you can determine Him leading you as the central purpose of your life to move on to maturity in your faith. You've prayed the panic prayers. You've been in the foxhole. You've been tossed out of the nest and discovered the thrill of saving faith. But that now is only a distant memory. Your faith has grown cold. It could hardly be called a "lifestyle." Friend, it's time to take the leap! We experience God's presence and power in our lives when we take intentional risks to serve Him. "Our extremity is God's opportunity."

One night a woman in our church jumped "out of the nest and onto His wings." It was a Saturday night some time ago, when she received a phone call from me unexpectedly. There was an emotionally distraught young lady in my office who was supposed to get to a half-way house down in the city. She had been a ward of the state all her life. She had run away and now she was feeling very much alone, and very scared. She told me, with tears streaming down her cheeks, "I can't go back there by myself. I just can't!" She might have been my daughter or yours.

So I got on the phone to one of our members -- a woman whom I had observed lived her life in that moment-by-moment availability to God. So I felt free to call her. "Would you be willing to come to the church and drive this young girl down to the city and get her moved back in Okay? Pray with her, be with her?"

There was a brief silence. I wondered what was going through her mind, as I put myself in her shoes. Saturday evening plans, the fear of getting involved with further time commitments when she was already over-involved (and I knew that), fear of physical harm. And then the answer came, "Sure, I'll come pick her up in a half hour." She got another member of the church to go with her. And so two jumped out of the nest that night, and onto His wings. But more thrilling still -- they spread out their wings and caught this tearful, very vulnerable, frightened young woman and bore her up and she experienced their wings as the wings of God.

There's one final thing that I want to say about the eaglet that becomes an eagle. Apparently when an aged eagle knows when it's time to die, the old veteran of the currents and the cliffs will fly to the top of a high mountain. She will perch on a rocky cliff. And with her talons planted firmly on the rock, and gazing squarely into the sun, the eagle will die.

In my years in the pastorate, I have had the privilege of seeing many eagles die -- Eagle Christians who have nothing to fear, who can stand with confidence before God because of Jesus Christ. Eagle Christians who have nothing to fear in the coming judgment because Jesus Christ has paid for their sins in full by His death on the cross. This business of faith in Christ really does work, you know, when it comes to the ultimate challenge of facing our own mortality. And there are so many Eagle Christians who in the face of death could plant their feet upon the rock of God's promises and stare into the sun of Jesus Christ who proved that God's promises are true and faithful. Eagle Christians who in life had taken that leap of Faith, and so in death could hear that voice, like the sound of many waters, coming from the throne of the universe, welcoming them home:

"See now how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself?"

Hallelujah! What a Savior! Will you pray with me? Gracious God, we are so grateful for your faithfulness when we have been at our rope's end. When all hope has been gone, you have been there. When we have been bruised and battered by life and scarred by sin, wondering if we would ever again be acceptable, you have been there and shown us through Jesus Christ your love that will never let us go. So with our friends who are with us tonight, grant us that faith to reach out to you, to in trust themselves to you through Jesus Christ, that they may find you and jump out of that nest to find the thrill of being born up on your wings to soar in the heavens. Amen.

Interview with David Handley
Interviewed by David Hardin

David Hardin: How do we find the courage to get out of the nest? We may know we need to make a change, but how do we find the courage and the motivation to do it? The nest is so comfortable.

David Handley: I think as I see people in the church either being pushed out of the nest or jumping out of the nest -- and they are really two different experiences, one happens to us and one we decide to do -- I see the value of Christian fellowship -- the support system of a caring family and friends. When we are bruised by life, when things happen to us -- tragedies, crises, job interviews, job changes, babies being born, babies getting sick -- they are surrounded by a group of people who care for them and through that caring they feel the touch of God. And then, for people who need to be nudged on in life from their comfort areas, need to make that decision, again the supportive family of faith is so critical. So I think first of all, finding a community of people, a smaller group of people to be able to be supported by and accountable to, is an essential.

But I think there's a second thing that I've noticed that really helps me and I'm sure you've experienced helping you -- the personal experience of prayer, Bible reading and journaling. When I sit down and I get out my journal for the day -- I log in about three times a week, I wish I could do it more frequently -- I begin to reflect on what has happened the day before and what I'm facing today and what I will be facing tomorrow. Often a scripture will arise in front of me and I'll reflect with the assumption that God is trying to do something in my life and ask what it is that He's trying to do. What did He do yesterday as I encountered people that come in to see me or my neighbors or my friends? Often I'll find God sort of nudging me in a certain direction.

Hardin: How about unanswered prayer or at least prayer that seems unanswered. Any encouragement for people who feel their prayers are not being heard?

Handley: I think the first encouragement is what you and I both know, that it is a common experience. I think that unanswered prayer is something that we all go through. It's perhaps the most painful crisis of faith. The classic unanswered prayer, of course, was Paul's when he had his "thorn in the flesh" that he talks about -- we don't know what it was, perhaps it was malaria, or some other disease -- but he prayed and prayed and prayed, according to his own testimony that God would deliver this thorn from him. And God did not. Finally the answer came back to him from God, "My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in your weakness."

Hardin: Trust the journey, in a way. Don't try and control the journey so much.

Handley: That's a good way to put it. I like that. Who's in control? Us or God? It is gratifying to me to know that in a sense there is no unanswered prayer. God is at work, either by His yes or His no. The no's are harder to accept, but often it's through the no's that we learn the most.

Hardin: You have a lot of young people in your church -- a lot of young couples -- and certainly you're involved in many weddings. What advice do you have for married people, young and not so young, who are struggling with staying together, staying with their relationship?

Handley: Well, I always have to start from a first person perspective. I've been married for 18 years and I think marriage is a wonderful experience. I'm looking forward to our anniversary coming up in June.

But marriage is a hard experience and if my wife were here, she would probably testify even more intensely than I how hard an experience marriage is -- being married to me! I've done a lot of weddings, Dave, and in counseling with couples, I always try to bring the cross of Christ into the center of our discussion because the cross says at least three things that have to take place in order for a marriage to work.

Number one: The cross talks about love -- a love that the world knows little about -- it's unconditional love. Not a love that I will love you as long as you love me, not that I will love you as long as you meet my needs, the unconditional love that God shows on the cross. God loved us even when we were spitting at Him and we were nailing Him to a cross and God still loves us; it's that unconditional love, for better or worse, for richer or poorer in sickness and in health as long as we both shall live, that the cross represents. Unconditional love.

The cross also talks about forgiveness. I tell couples, and I keep telling myself in my own marriage, that marriage can never survive without forgiveness. We disappoint each other, we disillusion each other, we fail. We cease to be the kind of person that we need to be. So forgiveness has to be an essential.

And thirdly, the cross represents new life. In our Protestant tradition, the cross is an empty cross and the reason we have it empty is because we believe that Christ is risen (as all Christians do). With the cross comes the resurrection and I tell couples that as they experience these disillusionments and disappointments, that if they hang in there with that crucifixion, soon a resurrection will come and God will give them a relationship they never would have planned.

Hardin: What you're really saying is that they're responsible for being there for the other, instead of that person being there for them. That's what the Lord's really saying: He's saying, "I'll help you."