I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.
Isaiah 41:16 NIV
Have you ever been around chickens—I mean more than just at dinner time? We had chickens while I was growing up and my parents still keep chickens today which makes things a little more difficult when they go on vacation. This summer they took an extended vacation which meant they needed their one and only daughter—their favorite daughter—to come to their house several times a week to gather eggs, and to feed and water the chickens.
Chickens are rather silly creatures. If you have never spent time around them you probably don’t think they can provide much entertainment, but that is where you would be wrong. I opened the gate to their coop and 13 hens and a large rooster came barreling out, flapping their wings, and making their little chicken noises. The chickens tend to stay in a large group until something scares them—a leaf, a shadow, a loud noise—then they take off running, none of them know where to, just away from whatever startled them. Since they are pretty skittish, the hens generally give you a wide berth, and this particular rooster generally leaves you alone unless he feels you are threatening “his” hens.
When it came time to feed them, all of the chickens would pause and warily eye me as I walked over to the large metal trash can that houses their food. Hearing their food bag crinkle, they would come trotting over and I would toss them a handful of food. That is when the rooster acts like he is the boss. Seeing the food fall to the ground, he would start a gurgling clucking sound, alerting the hens to the fact that there was food available. If they were not close by, the hens come running. I laughed at the rooster; there I was giving them the food and he acted like he’s the one who found the food—claiming all the glory for himself!
Everything was all well and good until I started to walk over to get the garden hose to refill the water. I noticed the rooster looking at me in that suspicious way roosters do before they decide you are a threat: part in nonchalance—head turned looking out of the corner of their eye, the other part so focused you know they are watching your every move. I was not between him and the hens so I didn’t think he should feel threatened but I gave him a wider berth anyway. It didn’t matter. He came running at me with his neck feathers raised and he kicked me!
You may not be aware that rather than pecking you, roosters typically kick their attacker. They jump, flapping their wings, and lifting their feet they kick and dig their claws into you. At the very least, they can deliver a nice welt and a bruise. I backed away and yet he still came at me. I was stuck; if I ran he would chase me and, as he was not allowing me to put space in between us, I decided to do the only other thing I could—catch him when he jumped at me! He jumped and I stuck my arms out to grab him. He ended up hitting my hands and bouncing back from me but it was enough—he left me alone! I then escaped to the house to call my parents to tell mom that her “nice” rooster had just kicked me!
Thinking about the chickens though made me realize once again how much the animal and natural world reflect the spiritual world. How often do we act towards God the way that rooster acted towards me? God showers us with blessings and just like the rooster with the food, we act like it was all our doing—as if we had total control bringing the good event to fruition.
Like the rooster kicking me when I was trying to get the hose to give them life-giving water, we eye God suspiciously when He is doing something new in our lives. We know He has taken care of us and yet when something new comes our way, when we hear Him calling us to do something we don’t want to do, we act like the rooster. We kick, we fight, we throw a tantrum. We get in the way of Him giving us the very thing we need. Just as the chickens don’t know that water is contained in that big, scary, green, garden hose; we don’t know what is on the other side of our comfort zone.
The rooster ended up behaving after that incident. He didn’t try to kick me again, and he was generally well behaved for the rest of the time I was housesitting. It didn’t take his little pea brain long to figure out that I was on the same side with him and the hens. Do we learn that quickly with God? Do we show even less faith and trust than a chicken?
P.S.
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