Episode #452 – Chickens on the Roost

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Chickens on the Roost
Episode #452
August 2, 2015

With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special Guest:Jennifer Wentzel

(Jennifer) Hello. I wanted to share this, because the Holy Spirit brought it up, and it’s a little story, and to me, just a divine illustration of Who He is with us and who we are with Him. And the Holy Spirit gave me this to impart the love of God, to show the love of God, I think, in an accessible way to someone whom I adore and who needed it. So, we get little batches of chickens. I don’t know why I’m calling them that. I’m sorry, they’re not cookies, but anyway, we get like a batch of chicks, and they’re little tiny babies, and we have, John has created this whole happy, like little miniature coop for them, and they have their little water dish and everything, and that’s where they live their lives with their heat lamps for, you know, until they become teenagers. And then when they’re teenagers and they’re a little bit bigger, but they’re still not big, they’re maybe the size of a foot with feathers, you know, I mean, so they’re not, you know, big. And…
(John) A little foot.
(Jennifer) A little foot with feathers. And they move in their little scared little flock, and we put them in the bigger barn with the adult chickens. You know, we basically wait till they’re big enough that they can’t just be, you know, eaten by the rest of the chickens, because chickens are foul, godless birds.
(J) Fowl!
(Jennifer) Hahahah. Fun. Fun. Anyway, so you have to train them to get on the roost, on the chicken roost. And John has this thankless, incredibly thankless task, and so we had… Well, we had like 40 or 50, 50 or 60. I mean, we had a ton of these teenage fluffers, and John had to pick them up one by one and set them on the roost, because they won’t just go up there of their own accord.
(John) Now when they’re raised by their mother…
(Jennifer) Right..
(John) And they’re under her all during the day, she will get up on the roost, and I have see it, where they will literally get up on the roost on top of her, and they’ll sit on top of her in the middle of the night. And so, she’s saying, “This is where you want to go, so that nothing below can get you.” And they do it and then naturally they, you know, as they get bigger and they can’t sit on her anymore, then they get next to her, you know. And so, that’s the process, but because these little chickens only have a mother that has two legs, that has a face and a beard, and hahahahaha, and drives a car… Yes, I’m not going to sit on the roost and let them sit on my back. And I wish there were only 40. There was more like 70 or 80 chickens, but yeah, one by one. Ok, so here we go.
(Jennifer) So, anyway. Yeah, so what John said. And Hahahaha, so they were not trained, and they had no one to show them, because chickens are loveless birds as well, and they don’t adapt. But anyway, so they’re gathered in a corner, a dank, dark corner on the ground, the dirty ground next to the wall of the barn, very unsafe place for teenage, small-foot sized chickens.
(John) All bunched together to keep all the warmth together, and that’s their little warmth to make the dank not dank.
(Jennifer) It’s everything they’ve known. They were in their little, happy coop on the ground, and now they’re in the bigger barn and they’re still on the ground.
(M) You must tell them why you have to get them off the ground, because of the critters that come in, snake, raccoons, rats.
(J) Weasels.
(Jennifer) Weasels.
(J) I mean, you know, if you’re laying on the ground, you’re fodder.
(Jennifer) Yeah, You’re a Happy Meal. Hahahahahahah, anyway! So, they’re there, and John has to come in and be their mom and teach them about the roost; and so patient, so loving. Unbelievable. So, he’s picking them up, two and three at a time and setting them gently on the rungs of the roost, and he’s talking quietly to them. He’s very careful; he doesn’t startle them. He’s, you know, slow movements, everything… just love, patience, kindness. For every three that he puts up, two hop down. He’ll put three more up, one will hop down. They want the ground. They know the ground. That’s what they want. That’s where they feel safe. That’s where they think they’re fine. And here they are being put on this thing that they don’t know, and they will not stay. It’s like herding cats. That’s what herding chickens is like. Yeah. So, John’s so patient.
(J) And it takes, you know…
(Jennifer) Forever.
(J) Well, but it also takes… I don’t immediately do what you’re about to say. This takes, you know, I’ll do this for about two weeks of every night I go in there and I’d say, “This is where you need to go. This is where you need to go.”
(Jennifer) Yes, he invests a lot, a lot, a lot of time, more than this non-  beardless mother would invest in said birds. So, this goes on, and so basically they will not just go of their own accord. They still have to be carried. They have to be taken, they have to be brought to safety. And finally the rope runs out, and it’s not even so much the rope. It’s, these are chickens who are not behaving in ways that will allow these chickens to live.
(J) Like I said…
(Jennifer) To survive, to do what chickens do.
(J) Yeah, that’s it.
(Jennifer) Which isn’t that great a life anyway, but it’s the life they were given, and we’re grateful for it and for the eggs that come from them. So, it’s very important. It absolutely matters that they be enabled to live their little chicken life.
(J) Yep.
(Jennifer) So, finally at the end of this, kindness hasn’t worked. Repetition hasn’t worked. Gentleness hasn’t worked.
(J) So, we’re talking about maybe 20 of the 70 or 80 chickens are still unwilling to abide by, you know, the other ones now after the two weeks of training are getting up there.
(Jennifer) So, that’s actually even more pointed. So, yes, there is a small section of chickens who are untrainable, who do not respond to the farmer’s love. Hahahahaha… And when the time has run out on these little chickens, basically John had to make it more terrifying for them to stay on the ground than to be on the roost.
(Sound effects) GRRRRRRROWWWWW!
(Jennifer) Even to dash all their beliefs about their beloved little, dank corner and blow them up with wild yelling and waving of arms and stomping of feet and banging on the barn door. It’s just a cacophony of fear had to come and hit them. And that and only that put these last, stubborn, rebellious, little chicks up on the roost where they would actually be safe, where they were supposed, where they were made be, made to sleep. They were created to sleep in a roost, hahahahahha, but they required being terrified.
(Sound Effect) GRRRRRRRROOOOOWWWWWLLL!
(Jennifer) The love didn’t work. The gentleness didn’t work. The kindness didn’t work. The time, the training, the discipline, all that didn’t work. They had to be terrified, absolutely terrified and have their little worlds blown to bits.
(J) But see, this is the deal. I will, if they’re trying to go to their little happy place, I freak them out. But the second they start going over towards the roost, I’m kind.
(Jennifer) Kind, happy, calm…
(J) Kind, happy, calm John. And if they start going up the roost I’ll never touch them, I’ll never hurt them, I’ll never do anything. And then we go back to the ones at the dank corner. GRRRRRAAAAWWWWW! Yeah! Hahahahahaha.
(Jennifer) Hahahahahahahah. And to me that was, I mean, good grief, that’s such a picture of my life with the Lord. It’s a picture of all that He did; the rope, the grace, grace upon grace, love upon love, long suffering, patience; Him in Martha in John in Carole, in my family, in so many people. I was given time after time, love after love, gentleness after gentleness. But at the end of the day I kept going back to my dank, little corner, and you know, it’s a picture of Who He was that He loved me enough to terrify me out of the place where I actually wasn’t safe at all, and up onto the roost where I was created to be, called to be, meant to be, and that’s what it took. That was love, love that chased me up onto the roost and blew up my world… for me. Well, yeah, the picture that the Holy Spirit gave me of me and my fellow chickens who would prefer to return to the corner. Hahaha. It is the absence of the fear of God. It is the complete absence of the fear of God. And…
(J) Where no wisdom resides.
(Jennifer) Absolutely, no wisdom. Not only no wisdom, no basic instinct for survival. It’s really what it amounts to. Even the rest of the chicks understood on a cellular level as they were created to that they were meant to be off the ground, and so they followed. It’s the pitiful, badly sick little chicks that stayed on the ground. And that’s what it is if you have no fear of God, it’s not only no wisdom, there’s something innately wrong with you. You have become wrong. Yes, it is death. And…
(J) But God in His love and His commitment is so willing to infuse you with the fear that will bring you up off of the ground and up onto the roost.
(Jennifer) Well, and that’s just it. To refuse to fear God is madness. There’s no clarity of mind there, and there’s no life there. There’s no ability to live life there. And it is love that would heal that particular sickness by bringing the fear of God. If you do not fear God Almighty, One Who knows everything and can do anything and Who everything in the whole wide universe answers to, well then, you’re not really, you know… I wasn’t a very bright bulb. I was a little chicken returning to his dank corner. That’s just it. That’s my story, and I’m ok with that, because I’m now on the roost and so nothing else matters. My story is merely a product of me getting there. What matters is that I got there. The story, I can’t be ashamed of it. It got me there. It is my story. But at the end of the day the story isn’t of the chicken, it’s of Him. It was of Farmer John. That’s the story, you know, and that’s the picture of what He’ll do, and it’s, oh, we need it.

Chickens on the Roost – Episode #452 – Shulamite Podcast

Additional: Chicken Stories