chickens

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Genesis 1:28

My husband and I have four chickens on our little suburban farm. They are our “Covid Babies.” I’m not really sure why we decided to get the chickens back in March of 2020. We knew nothing about taking care of farm animals. But like starry-eyed parents carrying home their little bundle of joy from the hospital we eagerly packed up our four baby chicks in a box and left the dusty little farm store behind. We got four, instead of the two we originally planned, because we aren’t allowed to have a rooster in the city. It was our insurance plan. If one or two grew up to be roosters we’d have to “do away” with them.

And here we are more than a year later with four giant chickens in a fairly small coop. Henny Penny, Mabel, Grandma and Goldie don’t seem to mind. They grew up snuggled in close and seem to enjoy each other’s company. Each day we go out to the nesting box in eager anticipation of fresh eggs and we are rewarded. But what does that have to do with praising God?

Today, as I look out my “She Shed” window and watch my four egg making creatures peck and sleep I can’t help but be amazed at the plans and gifts of God. In the beginning He created the animals and plants prior to man. He prepared a place so perfect for us humans to grow and prosper. The chicken is pretty much God’s perfect animal gift to us. It is an egg laying machine. Left to wander they drop eggs wherever they go – fertilized or not. It’s a daily gift of food, not just for humans, but other animals should they be so lucky to encounter a free roamer.

When we got our baby chicks we read all the books about how to care for chickens and how to train them up just right. Having trained a puppy just a year prior I was ready for the task. And yet, when the time came to put them out in their “Big Girl Coop” they needed no human intervention. At night they headed to their protected beds. By day they hid away in the appointed laying space. All by instinct. All by God’s design. It’s pretty amazing.

When we remove the concept of God the Creator from our lives and look at the world from a random point of view the danger is in placing humans and animals on equal ground. But since the beginning of recorded time humans were appointed by God as protectors and users of Earth’s resources. God did not make a chicken to simply lay hundreds if not thousands of eggs in her lifetime just for them to be unused.

If you’ve ever been around a chicken in the midst of the egg laying process you’ll hear something interesting. When the deed is done, she will often squawk loudly in triumph. My chickens don’t hang around protecting that egg from me. In fact, it’s almost like they are saying, “here, have another!” And each warm egg I pull from the nest is a reminder of our God who has gifted us with all we need.

Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus.

When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”

The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts?Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God. ²⁶Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, “We have seen remarkable things today.”

Luke 5:18-26

“Follow the science.” “Believe in science.” Sound familiar? And yet throughout this year “science” seems to not be the concrete “savior” so many want it to be. I once had a woman tell me she wears her mask to “show her love for me” because science says it’ll somehow save me that she is wearing a mask. While I’m not here to debate wearing or not wearing a mask I can tell you that her wearing a mask doesn’t prove to me she loves me. I’m appreciative when someone doesn’t sneeze or cough in my face but I don’t consider that a proof of their love for me either – it’s just courteous.

We are a people that love proof. So often the proof we desire is that which validates our own opinions – even in the face of completely opposite proof. My father is an atheist. While I don’t expect everyone to suddenly be a Christian, the idea of not believing there is a Divine Entity that had its hand it creating us and the universe seems so, well, unscientific. But just like the pharisees and teachers of the law in the verses today, sometimes we just have a hard time believing even when something amazing is happening right in front of our face. They were so focused on their twisted version of the Law they couldn’t even allow the people to glorify God when faced with miracles.

And then Jesus. Just the simple fact that the paralytic man’s friends knew that if they could just get him close to Jesus, he would be healed was amazing. Where was their proof? To passersby watching them up on the roof trying to lower him down might have scoffed and thought they were crazy. But to the friends, they had only heard of Jesus’ miracles and put their faith in the unknown. For the people inside the house watching Jesus heal the man they had all the proof they needed as to who He was. And yet their sticking point was Jesus forgiving the man’s sins. The healing proof still wasn’t enough for them.

I so frequently see things in nature, not just the amazing ecosystem God created for us humans to survive, but also the heart wrenching beauty and think, “How can anyone not believe there is a God?” What more proof do they need? Our bodies are fine tuned to this earth. The circular systems of creating breathable air, water to drink, food to eat, and sunshine and darkness for our bodies to succeed are really all the proof we should need.

My husband and I got four baby chicks back in March. They are now big, beautiful ladies that lay eggs daily. I asked my husband the other day, “Is there any other animal on this planet that works so hard to feed us humans?” The chicken, according to the Smithsonian, dates back between 7,000 to 10,000 years. It’s mentioned both in the Old and New Testaments. And if you look up a picture of the innards of a chicken you’ll see it is quite simple. In fact, it seems its sole purpose it to lay eggs. There’s really nothing fancy and yet they are amazingly fascinating. The process by which an egg ends up being an egg seems magical. And yet it happens every, single day. Each time I collect eggs I thank the ladies for their hard work. Because I know the next step for that egg will be something delicious – nourishment for my husband before he heads off to work, a small but important part in homemade cinnamon rolls, the key ingredient to a souffle. The chicken was made specifically to lay eggs – fertilized or not. And we were made to eat them.

And yet we still want proof. When I hear non-believers ask for proof I just smile. They are their own proof. Their amazingly complicated body system – the most complicated of all the animals on the planet – that’s their proof. Every breath we take, that’s our proof. And the fact that we are the only species to yearn for a purpose on this globe, to question why we are here, is even more proof. Sometimes the proof we seek is in the absence of something. For the pharisees, they wanted proof that Jesus could forgive sins. And yet they witnessed a God-given miracle right in front of their faces.

Goose bumps evolved to make our ancestors’ hair stand up, making them appear more threatening to predators.
As you breathe, most of the air is going in and out of one nostril. Every few hours, the workload shifts to the other nostril.
Your tongue is made up of eight interwoven muscles, similar in structure to an elephant’s trunk or an octopus’s tentacle.
On a genetic level, all human beings are more than 99 percent identical.
25 Amazing Facts About the Human Body by Mental Floss

How much amazing proof are you overlooking every day? Every single minute of every single hour we take a breath, God proves His existence. The “science” surrounds us. It is us. We are His amazing proof.

Tag: chickens

Egg-ceptional Gifts

Amazing Proof