"Free Range" Living Isn't All It's Cracked Up to Be: Pioneer Files

 

Chickens are awesome. 

They're practically the perfect creatures. In exchange for food and water, they produce eggs for breakfast and great fertilizer for the garden. If they're "free range" chickens, they also provide bug control. Though they will peck each other to death, they're generally mild-mannered around humans.

Just don't fence them in. 

Poultry have a big problem accepting boundaries. They were hatched to be free and will exploit every weakness in your defenses for an opportunity to run amok through your flowers. They can dig under and fly over every fence known to man if given half a chance. If allowed to roam, they will ravage the herb garden, uproot up the new mums, rearrange the ground cover, transfer the new mulch from the flower bed to the driveway, and taste just a bit of each tomato on the vine - unless it a ripe one. 

That one they will devour.

They favor freshly-painted decks and door mats upon which to do their business, though they're not above depositing a little surprise in the grass for you to find when you go out at sunset to close them in. 

An enemy is always watching...

Our particular little flock of barred Plymouth rock hens love to dig under the fence separating their pen from the canyon behind us. They have hefty claws that make short work of a piece of property. If they break through, they will spend a lovely day harvesting the bugs and weed seeds in our neighbor's pasture until time to slip back under the fence at twilight. 

One sunny morning I heard a commotion at the hen pen. I ran out in my pajamas and robe to find they had once again escaped into the field. All except one were frantically scooting back under the fence into the pen, squawking in a cacophony of alarm. Another strange, louder shriek overrode their protests.

Then I saw it.

In the field, a red-tailed "chicken" hawk had one hen trapped against the fence separating our properties. 

I grabbed a nearby shovel we use for such emergencies and confronted him, yelling as I approached. 

He held his ground, wings outstretched to their limit as he met my challenge.

For a moment, I wavered. What if he turned on me?

It seemed there was no other way to save her. I advanced toward him, waving the shovel like a sword and shouting like a wild woman in my robe and slippers. As I got closer, I realized he didn't actually have the hen in his claws. He had her trapped between his legs as he gripped the wire on either side of her. 

Thankfully, he didn't call my bluff, finally relenting in a stir of wings as he flew off.

The hen lost no time finding her way back under the fence to safety.

Later, I examined her and found no sign of injury. 

 

 Boundaries protect us.

It's simply not safe for the chickens out of their pen in our neck of the woods. We've lost chickens to owls, hawks, and coyotes over the years. One year I discovered a coyote dashing across our deck with a hen in its mouth.  Chickens might not like being penned in, but we can't explain to them that we're keeping them safe. They don't understand our language.

Thankfully, we know the language of God.

One of the most sorrowful verses in the Bible is found in Jesus' moving words to the people in Matthew 23:27: 

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.

How God longs to care for His people! He is neither harsh taskmaster nor uncaring judge. 

Chicks are fragile. They need just the right amount of warmth and nurturing to survive. If you've ever seen how a mother hen hovers over her chicks, you can understand the self-sacrifice and constant care it takes. 

God yearns to care for us in this same way. This care includes boundaries to keep us out of danger. Oh, how we chafe at the cage separating us from unbridled freedom! How we pull at the leash on our lives.

Is God unkind? Oblivious to our needs? A cruel slave master? 

If you've spent many decades in the yoke, thank heaven for that. If you never had the chance to sow your wild oats or run free, praise your Father in heaven. He has saved you many times over from your Self, and Self is the worst master of all. Self gratification is never satisfied and will keep you chained forever to the carrot dangling just out of your reach.  

 

Thank the Lord that He never abandoned you to the free range, where the landscape is filled with vipers and vultures. 

You are just where you belong. Learn to love and appreciate the wires barring you from destruction. Let God lavish His dreams and hope for you upon your tired heart. Rest under His wings. Find the rest in real freedom.

The Flower of Forgiveness

 

                    Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other,                                                  just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

                                             - Ephesians 4:32 NASB

Forgiveness is the gift too precious to bestow upon the undeserving. 

Yes, it feels that way, and we need to own up to it. Forgiving others is a battle.

Forgiveness would be easy if it were as simple and satisfying as accepting the offenders' humble apologies as they came crawling to us in abject brokenness. It would be (we imagine) an act of mercy to relieve the suffering of such penitents. But that scene is the stuff of fantasy conjured up by a wounded heart, rarely rooted in reality. 

Humanity, as a whole, is pretty good at making excuses for its actions and words. We’d rather enter our houses justified in our own minds than make the painful trip to humility’s doorstep to ask for forgiveness. So we stand at mutual arm’s length as we hold tight to our respective territories and await capitulation from the other side. Forgiveness is the gift we love to withhold from the undeserving until they see the error of their ways. 

Just like Jesus did on the cross.

Holding on to the offenses of others against us keeps us captive to a constant replay. We relive the pain; we bleed all over again. But this time the wounds are self-inflicted as we cut ourselves in an effort to release the pain we should be releasing in three simple words: “I forgive you.”

During His time on earth, Jesus sought to extend forgiveness to everyone who has or ever will exist. 

He entered time and space and lived His entire life with the express purpose of giving us a chance to receive forgiveness. He gave opportunity to the demon-possessed and self-righteous hypocrite alike. One of His last acts on the cross was to forgive his killers; executioners neither Roman nor Jew. The nails in Jesus’ body were put there by every dirty thought and action of His crowning creation:

You and me.

I did not ask for Him to come. I wasn’t worthy of His suffering for my wrongdoing. He forgave me long before I asked for or wanted his forgiveness. But as He waited all those years, He never once treated me like the undeserving person I am.

Throughout the centuries and to this day, He likewise extends the scepter of life to all who will reach out to touch it. As long as there is hope for repentance, He endures our blasphemies, taunts, and flagrant sins. The gift is extended; it is up to us to reach for it. We are all the undeserving; there is no one who has not needed forgiveness. Remembering our own frailties, our goal should be to live in a constant state of forgiveness, extending to others that which we have received.

Extending forgiveness frees us. What others do with the gift is their decision.

For if you forgive others for their transgressions,
your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you do not forgive others,
then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

- Matthew 6:14-15 NASB 

Photo courtesy Erik Thorson 2023