I have nine free range chickens but no rooster. We enjoy the fresh eggs and their gentle demeanors as they peruse around our country property. Every once in a while an instinctual switch will prompt one of these chickens to try and hatch a clutch of unfertilized eggs. A broody hen like this will pluck out her breast feathers, stop eating, cease laying eggs, and just sit…on eggs that will never hatch.
.
I was missing a hen a week ago. We found her in our outside workshop diligently sitting in a wooden box trying to hatch seven eggs. Much to her protest I lifted the puffed up, squawky princess out of her nest to assess the situation. Let me tell you, I was not prepared for what came next! One of her eggs had broken and gone rancid underneath her warm body. This nest was a Petri dish that had been incubating rotten egg for several days. What a stench! Our wooden box was a mess and so was she. The nest, box, and eggs all had to go!
.
As I carried that hen back to the coop where she could rethink her life, I started to think about my own. What dreams and ambitions am I sitting on like rotten eggs, never meant to hatch. Dreams and goals are what make life interesting and purposeful but sometimes dreams are not from God and are purely self-indulgent. These dreams, much like my hen’s eggs, will never amount to anything life-giving. Even if I am whole-heartedly dedicated to my dreams, like my broody hen and her barren eggs, they’ll never hatch if their not borne from God.
.
I don’t want to spend my life refusing to leave my natural mindset, a nest of small, self-serving dreams when my Father is the giver of life and the author of true life purpose. God, give me courage to hatch the dreams that serve you and to let go of my own.
.
Many are the plans in a man’s heart but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails. Proverbs 19:21
