My childhood dream was to have a pet duck! So finally I was able to achieve that dream and ended up with four Pekin Ducks. A very long and sad story later, three of them died and I was left with one last sad and lonely girl. I decided to name her Reba, after Reba Macintires song, “Im a Survivor.” I did the only logical thing I could do for this lonely little bird, I made her move into the chicken coop! Some people may not know this but a duck and chicken are VERY different birds. Let me explain…
A duck has webbed feet, a chicken does not.
My duck is large and white, my chickens are not.
A duck loves being sprayed with a hose, a chicken runs away.
Chickens can fly a little, my duck can’t.
My duck loves to swim, eats more than my dog, quacks, and cant drink enough water.
Chickens can fly a little bit, take dirt baths, cluck, chase you, and tear up the ground looking for insects to eat.
As you can see chickens and ducks are very different animals! Just about the only thing they have in common is they both have feathers. Not even the beaks on these birds are the same. The first week the birds lived together was rough, Reba didn’t really fit in. On cold nights all the chickens would huddle together in the nesting box and Reba would lay on the floor of the coop all by herself. After about two weeks since the integration, I walked outside and was shocked when I saw Reba snuggling up with three other chickens! My family and I were excited when we saw the chickens accepting her, and when we actually saw them all getting along. Everything was great!
But I now am noticing little differences in Reba the duck. She wont swim in the pond anymore, and all the sudden she hates the hose. Now, Reba actually runs away when the hose turns on just like the other chickens. Before the integration, Reba would run up to the hose and flap her wings, now she cant run away fast enough. My cute ducky now eats dirt because she doesn’t get that the chickens aren’t eating dirt but just the bugs inside. All these changes in her, but why? Bad company corrupts good character.
If you hang out with the same person enough you start to become like them. When the first disciples came to Jesus they were not perfect! In fact I picture some un-groomed men, then were used to drinking and cursing. Now maybe Im wrong but thats just the way my mind pictures it. But after they hung out with Jesus they became preachers of the Gospel themselves! Transformed. I remember as a little kid, I hung out with this one girl a lot! When I would come home from a sleep over I found myself getting in trouble and sometimes sent to my room. My Mom used to tell me I was acting just like her and that I needed to hang out with some other people.
We can have the best intentions, we can be having our devotions daily and walking with the Lord faithfully! But, if we aren’t having balance in our life, and we find the only people we are spending our time with are our “chicken” friends, our faith will start slipping. Its important to hang out with the chickens, as long as we are making an impact on them instead of us picking up their “dirt eating habits”. As ducks we need to spend our time with other quacking people. That way we have accountability partners, people to help keep our feet on the ground.
My duck has now become a “Chuck.” (Chicken+Duck=Chuck) Reba doesn’t really know what she is. She is slipping. We need to surround ourselves with a good Christian support system so we can better impact the chickens of the world.Don’t be fooled by those who say such things, for “bad company corrupts good character.” 1 Corinthians 15:33
Alyssa Munsie
https://www.epicmissions.org
THE MISSION - Thoughts and Discussions on what it means to be used by God to spread the good news. We are a short-term missions organization that facilitates missions work in Florida. We custom design a week of missions service for college, high school and adult individuals. We also serve public high school teams on weeks of community service where they serve as part of their community service requirements.
Friday, May 24, 2013
As Dumb as a Goat
I have two Dwarf Goats named BillyMoo and MollyMoo. We had MollyMoo about a week before we adopted Billy. Billy and Molly are about a month apart in age and are now inseparable. Where ever Molly goes Billy goes, if Billy starts running and dancing Molly will too. Their relationship is so cute to see but it wasn’t always this way. When we introduced the two of them Molly hated Billy. We had to keep them separated at night for a few days because Molly would slam him into the walls of their cage and try to fight with him. After this period of fighting ended they began to love each other. Now their bond to each other couldn’t be stronger.
It was all a process with the two of them, they needed to go through the hard stuff so that they could move on with the good. In a way, a relationship with Jesus is kind of the same. Bad things happen in our life and when they do we look for someone to comfort us and we ask the famous question, “why?” This famous question is normally directed to the most famous being, God. God is in control of everything. Sometimes this knowledge brings us comfort but when times are hard this question seems to bring more resentment than anything else.
When asked the question, “When do you communicate with God most?” Most people, if honest, respond by saying that they talk with God the more when hard times come around. I know some people that never pray unless there is a crisis in their life. Maybe thats why God allows hard times to hit. If there was no death, sadness, poverty, hunger, sickness, war or hatred then life would be perfect. If the world was this way then that would mean there was no sin in the world. None of the things above even existed until Adam and Eve sinned and hid from God back in the Garden of Eden. Once sin occurred the world as Adam and Eve knew it changed. Sin is the cause of all this turmoil in the world. If there was no sin then we wouldn’t need Jesus to pay the price for our screw ups. If there was no sin, life would be perfect. But sin is here.
Maybe God allows us to go through hard times to bring us closer to Him. Lets face it, on our own, in a perfect universe, we don’t go to God. Our prayer life becomes sloppy, reading God’s word becomes less of a priority and our relationship with God starts to struggle. If we don’t go through the hardships of life then we won’t grow with God. I think God allows hard times so that we have an opportunity to cling to Him. Jesus knows that on our own we won’t cling to Him. Jesus knows that we are stubborn and all around stupid. We need Jesus because the world around us is filled with heartache and troubles. We need heartache to point us back to the One who will help us pick up the broken pieces.
Just like Billy and Molly needed that hard time to have the sweetest little friendship, we need the hard times to build our relationship with God. Its at these moments we have the opportunity to grow with God instead of apart from God. When the rest of the world around us has crumbled we have the opportunity to turn to Jesus. Hard times are really just an invitation to grow with God.
Alyssa MunsieDeuteronomy 33:27
The eternal God is your refuge, and His everlasting arms are under you…
https://www.epicmissions.org
It was all a process with the two of them, they needed to go through the hard stuff so that they could move on with the good. In a way, a relationship with Jesus is kind of the same. Bad things happen in our life and when they do we look for someone to comfort us and we ask the famous question, “why?” This famous question is normally directed to the most famous being, God. God is in control of everything. Sometimes this knowledge brings us comfort but when times are hard this question seems to bring more resentment than anything else.
When asked the question, “When do you communicate with God most?” Most people, if honest, respond by saying that they talk with God the more when hard times come around. I know some people that never pray unless there is a crisis in their life. Maybe thats why God allows hard times to hit. If there was no death, sadness, poverty, hunger, sickness, war or hatred then life would be perfect. If the world was this way then that would mean there was no sin in the world. None of the things above even existed until Adam and Eve sinned and hid from God back in the Garden of Eden. Once sin occurred the world as Adam and Eve knew it changed. Sin is the cause of all this turmoil in the world. If there was no sin then we wouldn’t need Jesus to pay the price for our screw ups. If there was no sin, life would be perfect. But sin is here.
Maybe God allows us to go through hard times to bring us closer to Him. Lets face it, on our own, in a perfect universe, we don’t go to God. Our prayer life becomes sloppy, reading God’s word becomes less of a priority and our relationship with God starts to struggle. If we don’t go through the hardships of life then we won’t grow with God. I think God allows hard times so that we have an opportunity to cling to Him. Jesus knows that on our own we won’t cling to Him. Jesus knows that we are stubborn and all around stupid. We need Jesus because the world around us is filled with heartache and troubles. We need heartache to point us back to the One who will help us pick up the broken pieces.
Just like Billy and Molly needed that hard time to have the sweetest little friendship, we need the hard times to build our relationship with God. Its at these moments we have the opportunity to grow with God instead of apart from God. When the rest of the world around us has crumbled we have the opportunity to turn to Jesus. Hard times are really just an invitation to grow with God.
Alyssa MunsieDeuteronomy 33:27
The eternal God is your refuge, and His everlasting arms are under you…
https://www.epicmissions.org
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