Some time ago Life magazine carried an essay and picture series entitled “Strange Birds That Cannot Fly.” The article tells the fascinating story of a group of strange-looking birds, with curious names like kiwi and cassowary and emu, which constitute one of the great contradictions of nature: They have wings but cannot fly. Living and thriving in remote places on earth where no dangerous enemies threatened, they have adapted as efficiently as their winged kin have to life in the air.
It was Darwin who supplied the first explanation for the development of the flightless birds, concluding . . .that many animals possess structures which can best be explained by the effects of disuse.
Here is an immutable truth in all life: We lose what we fail to use. The development of our physical, mental, moral, and spiritual faculties demand exercise and practice. If you are to be a concert pianist, you must begin on the elemental level of learning the scales. You must continue the practice. You can’t be a great athlete by simply deciding that this is to be your profession. You must discipline your body, learn the fundamentals of the game, eat at a training table, and practice day after day after day.
Why can’t we see that this is true also in the moral and spiritual realm? We become morally conscious by deliberate consideration and choice day after day. If we fail to exercise our best moral judgment, we soon become unconscious of moral demands. We grow into spiritual perception and sensitivity by cultivating the spiritual endowments God has given us. It is as difficult for one to pray who has not practiced prayer as it is for one to attempt a composition of Beethoven on the piano when he does not know the scales.
As there are ‘birds that cannot Fly,” there are persons who cannot live as God intended them to live. The reason is the same: because of disuse some basic faculties are useless. We can be delivered from this contradiction in nature by using what we have, by cultivating the gifts of God…prayer, Scripture, worship, intentional spiritual conversation.