Chicks on the Loose

The chicks are growing quickly and giving their mother Petronella all kinds of grief. A couple of the naughty ones can crawl under the chicken wire to get out of the coop, but they can’t seem to find their way back in. Poor Petronella paces the sides of the pen, watching them and fretting (at least I think that’s what she’s doing). About once a day I go out and grab the little runaways and stick them back inside the enclosure. You would think that Petronella would thank me for this act of kindness, but instead she fluffs her feathers, spreads her wings, and runs at me squawking with all her might. I’m safely separated by the chicken wire, though, so I just smile and chalk it up to the antics of an overwrought mother. My years of conferences with parents of second graders prepared me to deal with the Petronellas of this world. She just can’t understand that I’m really on her side.

I wonder, though, if I have some of Petronella in me when I talk to God. How often I have been the one squawking, running at God, feathers fluffed, complaining about something has happened or should have happened. I wonder if he smiles, knowing that I just can’t understand that he’s really on my side. Perhaps I am just as limited in my knowledge of my world as Petronella is of her chicken coop world. I guess that’s what Isaiah 55: 8 means: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. I hope I’ll remember that when I’m tempted to squawk at God’s work in my world.