Learning Our Purpose In Life

One spring day a boy was playing in the woods when suddenly he spotted something that looked like a nest. As he crept closer he saw it was a bird's nest with only one egg in it. Instinctively, he looked around but he didn't see any birds flying above him. The boy decided to take the egg home.
After showing the egg to his parents, he placed it in the chicken coop. (He hoped a chicken would sit on the egg until it hatched.) Finally, the day came for the hatching, and excitedly the boy ran and got his parents to come see the baby bird. But then came the revelation: The boy's father looked at the baby bird and told his son it was an eagle.
As the eagle grew, the boy's father helped clip its wings. The eagle seemed content in the barnyard with all the chickens.
Summer came, and the boy and his father became busy and forgot about the eagle. The father forgot to keep the eagle's wings clipped. No one noticed that the eagle grew more restless with each passing day.
With the change of seasons, it was inevitable that a summer storm would come, too. As the wind moaned and whipped through the barnyard, all the chickens began to hurry and scurry to find shelter. But not the eagle. The eagle stood with its wings spread out, looking into the sky. There, amid the pelting rain and lighting flashes was another eagle soaring with the storm.
Just then a gust of wind arose. The wind filled the young eagle's wings, enabling it to lift up from the ground and soar high into the sky with the other eagle. At last, soaring with another eagle, the orphaned bird knew its purpose in life.
Like the eagle, we too can learn our purpose in life once we know the great love our heavenly Father has for us.
"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!" (1 John 3:1 NIV)

- Sheryl Lynn Hill in "Soar As the Eagle"