Who satisfies your mouth [your necessity and desire at your personal age and situation] with good so that your youth, renewed, is like the eagle’s [strong, overcoming, soaring]! – Psalm 103:5, Amplified Bible (AMP)

The Bible is filled with wonderful word pictures.

According to the Southwestern Bald Eagle Management Committee of Arizona:

“Plumage” refers both to the layer of feathers that cover a bird and the pattern, color, and arrangement of those feathers.

In their five year development to adulthood, bald eagles go through one of the most varied plumage changes of any North American bird. During its first four weeks of life, an eaglet’s fluffy white down changes to a gray wooly down. At about five weeks, brown and black feathers begin to grow. It becomes fully feathered at 10 weeks of age. In its first year, the mostly dark-colored juvenile can often be mistaken as a golden eagle. However, the bald eagle progressively changes until it reaches adult plumage at five years. Notice in the pictures (click here to view the pictures) how its dark eye lightens throughout its first four years of life until it becomes yellow. Also, see how its beak changes from gray-black to a vibrant yellow.

It is believed that the darker, more mottled plumage of a young eagle serves as camouflage, while the white head and tail announce that it is of breeding age.

In sum, God has provided the eagle with what it needs to survive in different stages of its life. With each stage, the eagle is renewed with just the right covering to enable it to survive and to excel.

As we age, life brings with it new stages. Each stage brings with it new challenges, new trials, and new tests. When we are confronted by these obstacles, we have a choice to make: grow in character as we fight to overcome, or become defeated, depressed, and useless. Apart from God’s sustaining, the latter will eventually be our end; human strength has its limits. When we hold God’s hand through the struggles of life, however, we will be renewed and strengthened because God’s strength has no limits.

Paul wrote the following words while in the midst of constant persecution:

Therefore we do not become discouraged (utterly spiritless, exhausted, and wearied out through fear). Though our outer man is [progressively] decaying and wasting away, yet our inner self is being [progressively] renewed day after day. – 2 Corinthians 4:16, Amplified Bible (AMP)

We don’t have to be discouraged when life’s challenges come our way. All we need do is look to Christ hanging on the cross for us, remember that He conquered all that could hurt us eternally, and ask Him to revive our spirits as He enables us to take on the day, no matter what the day may have in store.

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