Once upon a time, we had chickens. We got into raising chickens because the school Maggie and Anna were attending at the time had eggs in an incubator and once they hatched they needed a home. Chickens are omnivores, they eat anything. They eat bugs, including ticks. You could feed them table scraps and let them pick through your yard and you would lose the ticks, cut down on trash and get eggs in return. It seemed like a good deal.
The girls loved the chickens. They held them, chased them, fed them, watched them grow, and collected the eggs. We found that chickens came in an astonishing array of colors, sizes, and types, and that different kinds of chickens laid different colored eggs. And I can tell you in no uncertain terms that there is a huge difference in the taste of fresh eggs verses the ones you get at the store. They are amazing.
But there was, we found, a dark side to raising chickens. A side of reality that is often not talked about much when people are talking about the joys of raising chickens. They were messy. They could make a lot of noise. Sometimes they would run away or wriggle under the fence into the neighbor’s yard—and that was not welcome.
Chickens we found, because of the food and scraps we fed them were also a draw for rats. They also attract natural predators like foxes and hawks. We lost chickens to both.
In the end, between the mess, the predators, and the fact that some neighbors were crying “fowl,” we decided that it was best to give up raising chickens.
The intentional life-on-life discipleship that we are called to in the Great Commission is full of joys, blessings, and surprises that put a smile on your face. There is nothing like seeing a person be born into the Kingdom of God. And it is humbling and joyous to watch people grow and mature in their faith and to see Christ formed in them and to know that God used you in that process.
But kind of like raising chickens, there is a messy side to discipleship too. A side of reality that is often not talked about much when people are talking about the joys of being spiritual parents. Spiritual sons and daughters can be messy too. Sometimes they make a lot of noise, run away or get themselves into trouble.
Like raising chickens unintentionally brought the problem of rats, life also complicates discipleship. When we are discipling people there come times when life springs some nasty surprises that you or the people you are discipling were not expecting that can get us off track, off focus, or leave us really confused about what is going on. An example is in Matthew 14 when Peter steps out of the boat and starts walking on the water to Jesus. Jesus called him to and he obeyed and he started to make his way on the waves to Jesus, but then his attention got pulled away to the wind and the waves and he began to sink.
And as chickens naturally draw their natural predators, discipleship has its natural, or rather, supernatural predators. 1 Peter 5:8 says, Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
While we have the option to decide whether or not to raise chickens, as followers of Christ we do not have the option to stop making disciples of those who want to follow Jesus. So what do we do when things get messy, murky, and complicated by personal, life, and spiritual problems and challenges? That is going to be the theme of this week’s posts.
Learning To Be Full Of Grace And Truth. 