"This country's national symbol, the magnificent bald eagle, is the theme for National Wildlife Week, to be observed by an estimated 15 million students, teachers and conservationists March 14-20. The bird is an endangered species in 43 states, although the National Federation reports the eagle population is beginning to make a comeback in some areas." (From Bedford Gazette)

The eagle is featured in this issue as our cover picture would indicate. The first article was written several years ago, but the truth in Exodus 19:4 is just as precious, needful and timely now as it ever has been for the encouragement of God's people.

I am reminded, too, of another portion of Scripture where the eagle is mentioned. In Deuteronomy 32:9-14, where Jehovah's care and guidance for Israel are revealed, God uses the eagle and its young as an illustration in nature of His ways with us. "As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the Lord alone did lead him (that is, Jacob, who symbolizes the nation of Israel), and there was no strange God with him" (verses 11,12).

The wisdom of the eagle in stirring up the nest to make her young get out and try their wings might at first seem harsh and cruel. But not so! The God-given instinct of the eagle causes her to have the sense that the time is come that her young must learn to fly. The air of the atmosphere is their sphere; to fly is their nature. As they are forced out of the nest and plummet towards the earth, her eye is upon them. When she sees them struggling to right themselves, sensing the time has come to save them from destruction, she swoops beneath them, spreads her wings and flies them to safety. They had their first lesson in learning to fly!

How like our God this is who faithfully cared for "Jacob," the name which indicates the character of a failing people sorely in need of His grace. God found His portion in His people whom "He found in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; He led him about, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye" (verse 10).

If He did this for Israel, His earthly people, how much more is His eagle-care exercised towards His heavenly people—His own today, the members of His body. Soon He will come to the air and receive us, His Bride, to Himself. Meanwhile, He wants us to use our wings of faith. Every stirring of the nest is for a divine purpose of teaching us to trust Him wholly, knowing that even if we fall He is there to bear us up and strengthen us to more simply trust and live in the heavenly atmosphere of His presence in the heavenlies in Christ.

Though the eagle is an endangered species, how good it is to know that there is no danger of our God ever failing to exist or to cease His constant watch over, and care for, His own. My reader friend, is this God your God?