I heard a story about an animal trainer — you may have heard it.
He had an eagle that was huge and it used to just sit on his arm while he did shows at a zoo.
It had a huge beak, which could take half your face or ear off, and the trainer used to have it right up near his face.
Someone in the crowd asked if he was frightened of this huge eagle. He said no, and that he had brought the eagle up since an egg and the eagle had imprinted on him and thought he was a person too.
So, I thought — what is imprinting?
And I found out that the first person the eagle sees when it is born, it thinks that is the mother so it would not harm that person.
There was another eagle that had been brought up with chickens on a farm and it thought it was a chicken, hanging around the chicken house with them.
It could have soared up into the sky so high, but instead it walked around and pecked the dirt with the chickens.
We may have been mistakenly identifying with something that’s not us.
There may be negatives in our lives — addictions, anger, small thinking, the environment we grew up in, rich or poor — but none of that changes our worth.
Unlike the eagle, we can change.
Are our thoughts limiting us, telling us that we are not good enough, that we can’t be successful, we’ll always be addicted, lonely or struggling?
Are we thinking like a chicken and not an eagle?
Our environment is not our identity — our identity comes from our creator. Let us re-imprint ourselves.
I wonder how many of us have been mis-imprinted. Remember, we are made in the image of God.
God says “you are blessed, you are valuable, you are free, you are forgiven”.
“I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” — Psalm 139:14
“The Lord is for me so I will have no fear, what can man do to me?” — Psalm 118:6
“He created everything in his image, including you. God created us in his image.” — Genesis 1:27
“God heals the broken hearted and bandages our wounds.” — Psalm 147:3
Let us soar like an eagle and not a chicken — see ourselves as valuable and strong and successful.
No matter what we’ve been told, God thinks we are terrific.
— Liz Spicer, chaplain of Kyabram P-12 College
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