While it was still dark, at about 3:40 a.m. we heard a ruckus in the chicken pen. Like the Minuet Men we rushed out side to see what was heckling our chickens. Low an behold is was the masked bandit running around the edges of the cage trying his utmost to nab a chicken. When he saw that humans arrived to defend the lives of their little chickens, he made one last attempt before trying to get away.
After our pursuit of the chicken thief, we came back to check on all nine of the chickens that were in that pen, everyone of them was there. He did not get a whole bird, but blood showed that he had terrorized and injured one or two of them. The chicken that was sitting closest to the fence was in shock. As we analyzed the cage we realized that there was one spot where the fence was pulled away enough from the frame that the racoon was able to manage to squeeze his hand up in there to pull a leg.
Why do I share this sad farm tale? Because 1 Perter 5:8 tells us that “our adversary prowls around like a lion seeking whom he may devour.” Here in America we do not always get that visual and my goal was to show you two things through that story. First, what the devil is like. He goes round and around to torment the children of God. He comes when we are resting and not being watchful, and he tries to get through any small whole, and if he does get a “foothold” he will pull and pull at it until he can get in and do great damage. We have sadly lost many chickens to the prowling, pulling, and cunning of racoons and had he gotten in the cage, we easily could have lost all nine of them.
The second reason I share this story is to encourage you that just because everyone is there that does not mean everyone is okay. We should all look deeper than counting heads to make sure people are still at Church. There is often much more going on under the surface. That chicken who was in shock lost a leg due to the racoon and being too close to the fence, but in the end that loss of leg caused the chicken to loose its life. She was in too much shock and lost too much blood that she was beyond recovery. So, we all need to check on those around us and make sure to get pass the surface. God has placed them in our lives for a purpose. If they don’t want to be tended to, fine, but have we done our job in offering to help them in their pain?
Also as a side not, we should make sure we are not sitting too close to the fence either. Stay close to the Good Shepherd and don’t try to see how far you can get without getting out of the pen. Our advisory the devil is looking to devour us and make us ineffective.
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