Chicken!

"They won't go outside!" I exclaimed to my husband. He had recently transferred some nearly grown chickens from their protective cage to wider spaces, which included a safe, fenced area outside. Howard came into the shed and began to nudge one through the opening to the outdoors.  The chicken immediately ran back inside to the gloom and semi-darkness of the hen house.  It had been almost a week, and the good-sized birds refused to budge!

Of course, I knew their trepidation was partly because of the roosters, which had been known to initially pick on a newcomer until they got used to its presence. But the young flock was missing so much! Fresh air, sunshine, discoveries in the grass--even the table tidbits I tossed in almost daily! It reminded me of how kids used to yell, "Chicken!" to a pal who refused to take a dare or do some weird feat.

Sometimes I think Christians are held back from some goal or accomplishment in work for the Lord because we are too "chicken!" We don't want our comfort zone to become uncomfortable! We wouldn't have the stories of the mighty heroes of the Bible if they had stayed in their comfort zones.

David stepped forth to kill Goliath.  "Then David said to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield, but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou has defied."!

The disciples risked and even lost their lives to spread the gospel.  In Judges 4:21 a  woman named Jael drove a tent peg through an enemy's head and delivered Israel from the Canaanites. A teen-ager named Mary suffered scorn and gossip to carry the Savior of the world in her womb.

We are not usually called to such mighty endeavors. But it's easy to let the smallest obstacle stand in our way...too busy, don't feel up to it, uninterested, inconvenient--when we are asked or invited to do something for the Lord.  Or if it is something that involves a risk, we may be too "Chicken!"