From the Eagle's Nest

By David Morsey

From the Eagle’s Nest is a book of devotional essays and poems. The message of hope and peace in Christ is timeless, a blessing from generation to generation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: May 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9781483483382

Book preview

FROM THE

EAGLE’S NEST

DAVID MORSEY

Copyright © 2018 Harvester Mission.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-8339-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-8338-2 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scriptures taken from the New King James Version of the Bible

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 04/13/2018

FOREWORD TO THE THIRD EDITION

Most of his close friends knew that the eagle was one of my father’s favorite symbols. He loved the image of the majestic bird effortlessly soaring to awesome heights—a symbol of the human spirit when yielded to the uplifting grace and power of God. David Morsey was relentless in attempting to help any around him to recognize that they could rest in this grace of God and thereby find peace.

The eagle keeps watch from a nest high above the wilds. His keen vision allows him to take in the comings and goings of the world below. Hence the title of this book. With vision sharpened by years of intensive training and study of the Bible, enhanced by innumerable experiences ministering to hurting people as a servant of Jesus Christ, my father would regularly contemplate the human condition, often committing his thoughts to short essays and poems. Later he wrote many pamphlets and books seeking to help communicate the great message of hope and peace in Christ. The shorter writings were frequently published in The Messenger, a periodic newsletter published by the Harvester Mission to its constituents. A collection of these essays was first assembled in 1977, into the first edition of From the Eagle’s Nest.

This third edition was reformatted with new artwork. The content is otherwise unchanged and since it is all directly derived from the message of the Scriptures, its content remains a timeless salve for the anxious soul. My father passed on to be with Christ in January 1996 after nearly fifty years of ministry. It is our privilege to continue to make his writings available to those who are searching for meaning in life.

D. Edward Morsey

President, Harvester Mission

June 12, 1996

FROM THE EAGLE’S NEST

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8, 9).

We must come to see what God sees and hear what God says and do what God wants. In the ultimate this is all that really matters. All else is transient and trivial.

To see what God sees and hear what God says, we must for a moment shut out the clamor of the world around us—of secular sounds and human voices, even religious. (Sometimes the simple realities of one’s life with Christ are obscured by religious forms and traditions—by humanly devised methods for being spiritual. What we really need is to get to the heart of identifying with Christ and having His power work within us.) Symbolically, we must get above the city with its din of worldly clamor; above the foothills of human thought, philosophical and religious; above the slopes of fleshly religious practices, to the rocky heights of God’s thoughts, where dwells the eagle.

But we do not ascend to the heights to spend our lives in cloistered contemplation, aloof from society. Rather we go to see, through God’s eyes, the world we then must embrace and serve in His caring.

It is hoped, without presumption that the following essays, selected from a quarter of a century of writing, will help to accomplish this.

Perhaps in these pages and with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we too may experience a moment of vision FROM THE EAGLE’S NEST.

INTO THE ABYSS HE CAME

Into the abyss of human misery He came,

And, though a babe,

        yet was His heart aflame with the Glory of God.

Into the abyss—the Glory of God for the world of men;

Into the abyss, where once He dared to drink the cup of sorrow,

And then—

        faced the consequence of that abyss,

And bore upon His flawless frame

        the symbols of all human sin expressed;

And in a tragic stroke the grand illusions laid to rest

        Of man’s inherent dignity.

Strange it is that all the tragedies of time

Have no sufficed to prove to man

        the depth of that accursed clime

                to which his soul was born.

Nor has it dawned upon his darkened heart

That e’en the noble things of man are part of vain facade.

And all the liberty

        In which he revels to indulge his selfish soul

Is but a bondage, from the chains of which

        the grace of God alone can set him free.

And so, insensitive to all but grosser earthly things,

And unaware the raft

        To which he blindly clings is rudderless and without sail,

He drifts through life,

        grasping, striving,

                bearing fortune’s perfidies—

Until that disenchanting moment when the spirit

        flees the mortal cage

And knows

        that all he lived for was but ashes

                and all the good he shunned—

                        the stuff of which eternal bliss is made.

Thus the abyss to which He came—the majesty of God enshrined

        for all the world to see—

                the Blessed Son of Man.

Into the abyss—

        the Son of God with the power to free

The souls of all in one great deed

        of holy, and unselfish love.

Now on eagle’s wings the souls of those who will, may soar;

And, unencumbered by the chains of demon power,

Know the thrill of life fulfilled;

        the joy of harmony with Him in whom

                the timeless universe remains secure.

BETHLEHEM

Geographically insignificant and all but trampled into oblivion in the stampede of a Godless civilization toward its inevitable cataclysm, this tiny village is nonetheless the watershed of God’s redemptive history—the turning point in the salvation of mankind.

The meaning of the name—house of bread, has been obscured in the maze of sentimental and romantic legends about the place. The crumbling walls have been enshrined by those who have lost the loaf in the lure of the wrapper.

Phillips Brooks did not forget. Looking out over the sleeping village one Christmas Eve, he penned his