I know I’m probably supposed to love all of God’s creatures, and with a few notable exceptions (SNAKES!), I try. But after a week of tending our chickens while my hubby was out of town, I’m perilously close to adding them to my “do not love” list.
I know they can’t really help that they’re dirty, mean and stupid, but any affection I managed to muster for them began to wane when I had to daily trudge out to our chicken coop in the August heat to gather up the paltry one or two eggs our dozen hens are currently willing to give us.
It didn’t help that on the last day of solo “chicken duty,” I leaned over to bless the birds with some veggie scraps and forgot about the electric fence wire that runs chest-high around the bigger fence. I got zapped like I’d been defibrillated with those big heart paddles.
A bad word may or may not have formed on my lips.
When I regained my senses, I opened the door to the henhouse and walked straight into a cobweb the size of Montana. And to top it off, after tip-toeing through the poopy coop, the only egg I found that day was smashed on the floor. By a vindictive chicken, no doubt.
We’re not sure why egg production is off right now, but it might have something to do with the arrival of a new rooster a month ago. I’ve named him Bill, after a couple of notorious womanizers. You can figure that out on your own, but don’t think about it too long.
But that’s not the only drama in the henhouse. The “girls” are also upset because two bullies in the group are squatting together in the favorite nesting box and refusing to let the others lay eggs there. The pair aren’t even sitting on any eggs, but dare to try to move them and they’ll peck the fire out of your hand. Trust me, I know this.
At least my current chicken woes haven’t obscured the lessons to be learned, as I’ve concluded that most of us are, in some ways, not so very different from my chickens.
For example, all I want from our chickens is for them to do what they were created to do: to lay eggs. And that is exactly what God wants from us. Well, not to lay eggs, but to do what He created us to do: to know, love, obey, glorify and live in relationship with Him. Why, oh why, do we have such a hard time with that?
Second, from God’s perspective, although He loves us more than we can imagine, we must often seem messy, bossy and self-serving, just like those chickens. We’ve certainly made quite a mess out of the perfect world He originally created for us. And how often do we doubt His sovereignty, wisdom and love, and peckishly attack Him when things don’t go our way?
I see a metaphor, too, in those stubborn hens refusing to lay eggs in the six perfectly good, unoccupied nesting boxes. Just like my husband painstakingly built those spaces for the chickens to enjoy (if laying eggs can remotely be considered enjoyable), God is lovingly preparing a place for us, too—an eternal home that will be more glorious than we can imagine (John 14:2-3). But the vast majority of people won’t go there because they refuse to accept the only way God says we can do that: faith in Jesus Christ (John 14:6). How frustrating for our God, who says He “longs to be gracious” to us (Isaiah 30:18).
I’ve certainly never mistaken being called a “chicken” for a compliment, but I’m beginning to discover it’s even more insulting than I thought.