Free to Soar

I arrived home from running some errands and noticed that a bird had flown into the garage.  It was a little brown bird, I’m not sure what kind, but it landed on the door frame where our water tank is housed.  

I stood in the garage waiting to see if it would fly back outside.  It just sat there contentedly.  I decided to close the garage door to encourage it to fly to freedom.  

As soon as the garage door began to descend, the bird flew wildly toward the outside.  But instead of flying through the opening into the sunshine, it flew on top of the garage door where it could not get out because the hole was too small.  

So, I pushed the button to open the door again.  Instantly, the bird flew back across the garage and perched back on the door it had found before.  

I tried this a couple of times and the result was identical with each attempt.  I could tell the bird was getting stressed out, so I decided to just leave the garage door open and hope the bird would find its way back outside soon enough.  

As I watched this bird following the same flight path with each exit attempt, I thought about how we end up mimicking that little brown bird when we get stuck in our formation journey.  We keep trying the same things and getting the same results, but I don’t think we mean for that to happen any more than that bird wanted to be trapped in my garage.  

When we get stuck, I think it is because we don’t know what to do.  So I thought I might offer you a series of questions to ask yourself that will hopefully help you name what has you stuck.  In naming where we are stuck, we can begin, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to take steps that move us toward deeper freedom.  
 

• In which area do you feel stuck or unable to move forward? 

  • mentally

  • physically

  • emotionally

  • spiritually 

  • relationally 

• Do you feel stuck in more than one of these areas? 

• Are you able to name why you feel stuck in each specific area? 

• Are you able to notice any steps you can take to get unstuck? 

• Do you have a safe person in your life that you can talk to about the areas you feel stuck?  If not, who could help you find someone? 

• Do you see God at work in these areas?  If so, in what ways? If not, how does that make you feel? 

• Is there one step you can take today to move toward freedom? 

  • setting up a counseling appointment

  • scheduling time with a trusted friend or mentor

  • spending time in prayer 

  • creating a piece of art

  • reading a book 

  • walking in nature

There are so many other questions you could ask or steps you could take, but hopefully, these will help get you started as you name what you are experiencing and notice ways to move toward deeper freedom.  

In case you were wondering, the little brown bird did eventually find its way out of the garage - no longer stuck, but free to soar.  

~  Melissa