Because 2020 hasn’t been crazy enough (eye roll), my husband and I decided to pile a bit more cray-cray onto our plates in the form of eight new chickens.
We’ve been chickenless for a while now. Our last batch of hens got too old to lay eggs and we didn’t feel called to run an assisted living facility for retired chickens, so we honestly weren’t too grief-stricken when they went on to their eternal roost. But after taking a chicken break, we eventually concluded it was a shame for our chicken house to sit there empty. Joe built it himself several years ago when we somewhat naively thought having our very own chickens would be fun and easy.
Have you noticed what a wide chasm sometimes exists between the concept of something and the reality of it? As that great philosopher, Winnie the Pooh, said, “When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and think of things, you find sometimes that a thing which seemed very thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.”
And so it was with us owning chickens. It seemed like such a good idea and yes, it does have its rewards, but in reality, dealing with those birds can be a real pain in the patootie. They poop a lot, peck sometimes, and, having even smaller brains than their owners, get themselves into loads of trouble because they always want more freedom than they can handle.
Our chickens have a nice big area to run around in outside their house, but Joe thought they’d enjoy more roaming room, so he decided to give them access to the pasture. It was risky because Bailey, our giant Great Pyrenees dog who’s supposed to instinctively protect chickens, tends instead to think they’re chew toys. Nevertheless, Joe turned the birds loose in the eight-acre pasture and they loved it.
The thing is, just as soon as we granted them this bit of freedom, we stopped getting eggs. And eggs are, after all, the only reason we have these birds. Joe came up with various grace-filled theories about why they might not be laying, but I knew the girls were probably just plopping eggs out will-nilly all over the pasture. Sure enough, when we again confined them to their private yard, we began finding eggs in the chicken house again.
It’s a shame our chickens aren’t smart enough not to abuse the freedom we’d like to give them. We’d love to expand their territory, but not if it keeps them from fulfilling their purpose.
I wonder if God doesn’t sometimes think the same thing about us.
God opens the pasture gate and says “yes” to so many good things in this world. Even in the hardest of times, we can all think of blessings we enjoy. I’ve been writing big and small blessings down in my purple “thankful” notebook for several years now. My list is approaching 4,000 and is nowhere near comprehensive.
Every good thing in our lives comes from God. I don’t think He enjoys confining or depriving His children, but He knows we usually can’t handle all the freedom we think we want. Our Maker knows us intimately and loves us perfectly, and His boundaries reflect that.
If our chickens would come in and lay their eggs in the chicken house, they would right now be frolicking in the pasture. May we grasp what they obviously don’t: Being free isn’t license to do whatever we feel like doing; it’s the opportunity to do what God created us to do.
?“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” – Galatians 5:13