What My Chicken Taught Me About Prayer

By R.M. Hamilton

Years ago, when I was living in New Zealand, atop a large hill rather misleadingly named Mt Tiger, someone gave me four chickens for a birthday present. I’m not going to say it was the most wonderful day of my life. So far, no day has surpassed the day my horse arrived. But it was close. Oh boy was it close.

Dad had built a small chicken house and we put it in a nice shady spot for the chickens. There were two grey Araucanas who’s only charm lay in the fact that they produced blue eggs. They were completely indifferent to my existence.

Then there was a beautiful Buff Orpington, a stunning bird, that for some reason took an open dislike to me. There was something undeniably hostile in the beady little gaze she fixed on me when she thought I wasn’t looking. It was a bit hurtful. Both being ladies of a gingery hue, I had assumed we’d get on. But she wouldn’t have a bar of me. I comforted myself by naming her after someone I didn’t like.

 There was also a  black chicken. I don’t know what breed the black chicken was and I don’t care. I have never met a chicken like that chicken. From the moment we met, I became her whole world. She followed me everywhere. It was a variation on the whole Mary had a Little Lamb thing. More like Ruthie had a big chicken. And certainly, wherever I went, the black chicken was sure to go. Naturally, I found this irresistibly charming. The black chicken (I named her after someone I did like, but unfortunately that person didn’t like chickens and wasn’t too pleased), made it very clear that she liked me more than anyone and anything. The minute she saw me, she would run away from her fellow chickens, clucking loudly.

Sometimes, her obsessive seeking for me did feel a bit much. Happily locked in the bathroom, gracelessly applying a tongue scrubber with an inelegant vigour, one doesn’t really like to become suddenly aware that one is not, after all alone. But there she was, watching me with interest from behind a basket of soap. Despite the intrusion of privacy and the shock of hearing her voice, I was touched. Whatever she was saying in her chicken language sounded admiring.

Then she worked out which bedroom belonged to me. I don’t know how she worked that out, but she did. As soon as she woke up, she would march towards my window like a feathered bagpiper at Balmoral and bellow until I got up. The other chickens would join her. But I was unimpressed by that. They merely resented waiting for breakfast.

While the black chicken applied all her efforts to establishing a deep friendship with me, the Buff Orpington was not lazing about. She was a political bird who harboured deep ambitions. She established herself as the boss over the Araucanas and fiercely banished them to the edges of the grain pile at feeding time. I made sure to spread the grain widely so they could all eat, but the Buff Orpington was monopolistic in her outlook and although she couldn’t eat all the grain, she did her best.

And this is when my black chicken taught me about prayer. One cold morning, when I had spread warm mash around the yard, the Buff Orpington was in a fiery mood. She had attacked the Araucanas with gusto and she was stalking towards the black chicken clearly expecting similar results. But unlike the Araucanas, the black chicken did not waste time trying to squabble for food. She turned her back on the Buff Orpington. She turned her back on the chicken mash and she walked right up to me and looked me in the eye.

She looked at me serenely and her look said, “I can’t compete with the other chickens. I can’t deal with that big Buff Orpington. I’m not even going to try. You know me. You feed me.”

Of course I did.

From that day onwards, my black chicken ignored the food laid out for the other chickens. She only looked at me. She took all her meals directly from my hand.

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We live in a world full of people squabbling for resources. Some people are like the Araucanas. They just want their share so they can live. Sometimes they get enough and sometimes they don’t.

There are also people who are like the Buff Orpington. They want a great deal more than their share and they don’t care how selfish they must be to get it.

Finally, there are people like the black chicken. They need grain too. But they know who truly controls the grain. When resources are limited and tyrants are strong, they know that God is still in control, and they look to him to provide.

When I’m afraid of the state of the world, I think of my black chicken lifting her eyes to me. Then I lift my eyes to my God.

As it says in the bible, “Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.”

If the state of the world makes you feel like a chicken, that’s OK. You have an owner who loves you.

Trust him.

Because compared to the size of him, all the nations and governments and riots on earth, are really just chickenfeed.

The writing and designs belong to R.M.Hamilton. The chicken pictures are graciously provided by Pixabay.