As I have stated before,,, I grew up on a farm,,, a farm with lots of animals. We had horses, sheep, pigs, milk cows, beef cows, geese, ducks, dogs, cats, rats, mice, bugs of all kinds, and of course chickens !!!
Chickens were my least favorite of the bunch, mostly because I was the one, when little, that had to gather the eggs (get pecked by the hens on the nest), feed and water them, and clean under the roost every week or so. What a pleasant experience that was !!
We had a pretty big chicken house (as my dad called it) and a good-sized, chicken wire-enclosed chicken yard. This chicken yard fence was probably about 8 feet tall, I would guess, a lot taller than I could reach at the time.
Of course, there was a reason for this high fence,,, 1- To keep the chickens in and 2- to keep the chicken eaters out. We had farm dogs that loved to chase these chickens and foxes and coyotes that would come around at night. They love a good chicken dinner !!!
Well, some of these chickens hated staying in that pen and as they got older, and their wing feathers grew out,,, some of them learned to hop and/or run to take off flying up to the top of that fence. They would set up there like proud Eagles and then fly off to the garden or barnyard for better food they could find,,, I guess.
That wasn’t a huge problem during the day, but became a big problem at night !!! You see, chickens, as with most bird types, return to a central spot to roast at night,,, usually, a place that is safer from the night predators !!! Usually high places like trees or the top of a building or high structures where these predators can’t easily climb.
Now there are two, pretty major problems, with chickens being out on their own in a predator prone area,,, their body is too big and heavy for their wings, and they can’t see at night !!! Chickens don’t really fly,,,, as you think of birds soaring in the wind !!! They have to get up on something off the ground a bit and then jump off flapping their wings and gliding in a declining trajectory down to the ground,,, usually 10-20 meters max !!!
So as you can imagine by now,,, these freedom-seeking chickens would roost on a low fence or the bottom branches of a tree or bush !!! A lot of times all I found the next morning, while doing chores, was the feathers left from the deadly encounter with a dog, coyote, fox, or cat !!!
So to help keep these chickens in the pen where they were safe, we would clip the long wing feathers of these chicken’s so they could not gather enough air to fly out of the chicken yard !!!
Now,,,,, You may be wondering,,,, What is the purpose of this chicken story ???
Well, the thought occurred to me that God had applied this principle in my life. As my Heavenly Father, that loves me, he saw that I was getting too far from the roost and venturing into the predator-infested world. I was deceiving myself into believing, because of my arrogance and pride, that I could survive and play on my own in this world,,,,, without consequences,,,, and then return to him after I had my adventure !!!
WRONG ,,,,,,,,, So Very Very WRONG
(To be continued)
God Bless You
Foul Weather Faith 