Unproductive

I once put a sign up in my chicken coop. They were not laying eggs the way they should have been. The sign read like this:

“Girls: I’m not too concerned as to which came first, the chicken or the egg, but you should be deeply concerned as to which of the two reaches my table first.”

I like eggs, but I can take chicken too.

It all started on a Sunday. I went out to collect the eggs, and ended up collecting the egg. One egg. At first I thought perhaps they were honouring Sunday, and not working that day. But when three days rolled past, with one egg a day, and then Thursday came with none, I knew I had a problem on my hands. Twelve hens of this particular breed should lay eleven eggs a day on the average. I wasn’t getting what I expected out of them. I was feeding them, watering them, treating them like privileged ladies. I insulated their home, put in electricity, and gave them the freedom of the yard. And this is the way they repay me?

Now I’m familiar with the seasonal moult, when chickens take off a few weeks to get rid of their old used clothes, and grow a nice new set of feathers, but why did they get together and do it the first week I owned them? I could start to take this personally!

But it did remind me of a Biblical truth. The Bible tells us that we, as Christians, are not our own. We were bought with a price. 1 Cor. 6:19-20:

“Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

It was an interesting day when I went to visit Clarence and Maria, and, out of about 5,700 chickens, this one dozen were chosen. They squawked a bit at the time, but in fact, I saved their lives. The rest have gone to meet their fate - meat (get it?). Now I don’t like to be compared to a chicken myself, but the parallel is too obvious to avoid. Look at John 15:16:

“You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.”

Just as I expect my chickens to donate the occasional egg to my welfare, so I am, as a Christian, expected by God to bring forth some fruit for His glory, or else! Read John 15:2:

“Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”

It is our Christian duty to serve God with all our body, mind and might. And yet, when we closely examine our performance, we sometimes find that we spend more time, preening, strutting, crowing and feathering our own nest, than we do bearing fruit for God. We are not our own, we are under God’s command. Look at Luke 17:10:

“So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’”

Now, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate every egg I get. But sometimes I wonder if these birds are worth the investment!

I wonder if God sometimes looks at us the same way?