Lessons From a Chicken

*The following article originally appeared at FaithWriters.com on 8/5/21.

Underneath the expansive canopy of the oak tree, the brambles of fallen leaves and branches crackled and snapped under my feet, each step I took carefully executed as I made my way across the sprawling braids of ivy. Twigs scratched at my ankles, reminding me that my feet were ill-shod for this quest, and that next time I might want to wear garden boots instead of flipflops.

Meandering awkwardly across the uneven terrain, I caught sight of what I was looking for. Arms akimbo, I smiled at the handiwork and leaned down to get a good look at it. There, sheltered in the crook of two narrow tree trunks, sat an ample nest made of leaves and twigs and other deciduous debris, and in it rested a perfectly oval lighter-than-light-brown egg.

Outsmarted again -- by a chicken! I leaned down to retrieve the small egg, slipped it into my apron pocket and headed back inside. Our small flock of hens, five in number, emerged from their shady spots, pecking at the ground as they prattled on with one another.
I opened the screen door and stepped into the mudroom, talking over my shoulder to my favorite hen, a robust and docile Plymouth Rock we named Oreo.

“Listen, you need to find a closer nesting area before I fall headlong into that ivy. Maybe tomorrow, huh?”
David stood at the kitchen counter, topping off his morning coffee. Having overheard the one-sided conversation, my husband shook his head and laughed.

“Your plan is not working.”

I laughed along with him, conceding defeat. For the last few weeks, I had been leaving wooden “dummy” eggs in the various nesting areas to encourage Oreo to lay her eggs there rather than the farthest edge of the backyard, purely out of convenience to me. I was sure it would work. Chickens are creatures of habit, and usually they can be easily trained to change unwanted habits into desirable ones. Usually. That’s not the case with this chicken. She pays no heed to my decoys or the nesting boxes they’ve been placed in. So, every morning at 8:30 like clockwork – or cluckwork -- off she goes into the ivy tundra, turning up her tailfeathers to my human ingenuity.

“She’s on to you,” he teased. “But the funny thing is, I can’t tell them apart from the fresh eggs. I’m confused by them. You’ve got to mark them with an ‘X’ or something. I keep bringing in the wooden ones instead of the real ones.”

I thought about our short exchange for days. The world is full of wooden eggs, crafted to confuse and mislead the seekers and the saved. They’re all around us, cleverly placed, hidden in plain view. A basket full of beliefs. Take your pick. They look good on the outside, but they yield nothing. As followers of Christ, can we spot the imposters? Are we so thoroughly familiar with the pages of Scripture that if presented with false teaching, we can recognize it for what it is? A dangerous decoy. A counterfeit. The forbidden fruit of sin that draws us in with promises of peace and enlightenment, but after a while, it leaves us hungrier and more confused than before.

Oreo still makes the same trek every morning across the ivy-covered ground to the safety and security of her nest, and every time I see her do it, I marvel at just how much she understands.

“For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace…” 1 Cor. 14:33 (KJV)