The Hen and Her Chicks

From: "He Loves Me: Learning to Live in the Father's Affection" by Wayne Jacobsen

" Allegedly a group of firefighters were checking up on hot spots after a forest fire had been contained. As they marched across the blackened landscape between the wisps of smoke still rising from the smoldering vegetation, a large lump on the trail caught on firefighter's eye.

As he got closer he noticed it was the charred remains of a large bird. Since birds can so easily fly away from the approaching flames, the firefighter wondered what was wrong with this bird that it could not escape. Had it been sick or injured?

Arriving at the carcass, he decided to kick it off the trail with his boot. As he did. however, he was startled by a flurry of activity around his feet. Four little birds flailed in the dust and ash, then scurried down the hillside.

The bulk of the mother's body had covered them from the searing flames. Though the heat was enough to consume her, it had allowed her babies to find safety underneath. In the face of the rising flames, she stayed with her young. She was their only hope for safety, and, willing to risk her own life, she had gathered them with her own body. Even when the encroaching flames began to scorch her feathers, she could easily have flown away to start a family on another day. How did she makes herself stay in the raging flames?

Her dead carcass and her fleeing chicks told the story well enough--she gave the ultimate sacrifice to save her young...

Not all chicks run to their mothers in times of danger. Some, either paralyzed in panic or trying to find a way to save themselves, are devoured. She cannot run around gathering them individually. They have to come to her. That's all the chicks in the forest had done to safe. They didn't have to earn it; all they had to do was run under the mother's wings and let her cover them.

Those who did were rescued; those who didn't were devoured. It didn't matter if they thought they had a better idea. It didn't matter id they thought they could outrun it. All that mattered was their willingness to trust the call of their mother...

If you want, you can give up all the ways you try to save yourself and coming running to him. He will pull you up close, under his wing, and take for you what you could never endure...

It seems we are all on the relentless pursuit to hide our own inadequacies and seek our own security. In doing so we are like little chicks running around the burning coop, throwing leaves over our heads and hoping they will be enough shelter.

But they won't be. There is only one covering that will save us from ourselves, and it is Jesus himself...

Cover yourself in him. Learn to live under his wings today and every day for the rest of your life. How do you do that? By coming to rest in the security of his love for you, allowing it to hold you in the most brutal of circumstances...

Trusting our own wisdom is so easy we find ourselves doing it before we ever realize it. There is only one place where we can learn the trust in God that was shattered in Eden--at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ. His willingness to trade his life for ours stands as unmistakable evidence of his love for us.

When you understand what really happened there, you will know how much you are loved. When you know how much you are loved, you'll find trusting him to be as easy as breathing."

Reading this story inspired in me both awe and revelation.

Awe with regards to the fact that Jesus as the "mother hen" would lay down as a covering for ME...Angela Booy...to protect me from the fires, the smoke, and the danger of this world. That is one of those to good to be true kind of things. How can that be?! It seems impossible, but it's not.

Revelation for me came in realizing that I would most likely be one the chicks that thought they had a better idea, could outrun the flames, or threw up leaves hoping to find cover.

Learning to trust God is steadily proving to be one of the most difficult feats in my life. I like to trust myself. My pride allows me to believe that I can manufacture my own security and safety in life. I fool myself into believing the voice of the serpent that says "If God's not going to give you what you think you need, maybe you should go get it yourself." Or "God helps those who help themselves."

The root of pride and sin in my life tells me that my self-preferring, self-trusting nature should be put above God.

Trusting God is NOT easy. But in His amazing grace and mercy and PATIENCE with me God keeps slowly revealing to me the areas of my life that I do not trust Him yet and opening my heart to let Him take over. One step at a time. I still like to trust myself alone. But as I see that my own efforts of leaf throwing are useless I am able to admit that trusting Him truly IS better than trusting me.

Love from OKC
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