Pecking Order

This spring I am going to get chickens. Only four though. So I have been researching different coops, different breeds of chickens and how to take care of them. As I was researching I found an article about chickens pecking each other to death…wait, WHAT? They peck each other to death? First, that’s gross and second, why? Well, they will peck at each other for a number of reasons. Because they are bored, they are too crowded or because of the pecking order (maybe that is where that phrase comes from). So now I am seeing the Hitchcock movie “The Birds” playing in my head when I go into the chicken pen to feed them. Surely I am going to get pecked to death because they are bored…

Why did I just terrify you with this story? Because God showed me how us as women can do this to each other. Ouch! Yup I just said that. It kind of feels like getting slapped in the face doesn't it? That’s how I felt when God showed me that.  Here is a glimpse into the ugly that used to be in my heart. I used to have a friend that I was very close to. She had an amazing gift to literally see Jesus and she was a good friend. She also had a really dark past. Drug use, she was abused and hurt badly by those who she thought she could trust. Then, she met Jesus and her life changed. Things were going really good. We had a really great group of friends, then slowly her past crept back in and she spiraled back into her old habits. We tried to show her that her decisions we leading her down a dark path but she couldn’t see it that way so things became very hard for us to maintain a friendship with her. But instead of extending grace and mercy, I saw her weakness and I began to peck her to death. I pecked at her by gossiping about her. Pecking at her by taking to Facebook (I know real mature right?) and making snide comments about her, publicly proclaiming that I am better than her. That I am “higher” in the pecking order than she was. I pecked at her by secretly hoping things would go worse for her. That her kids would be taken from her because of her decisions. Hey, I told you I was going to show you the ugly in my heart pretty ugly isn’t it? But if we are all honest with ourselves we have thought these things about other people and sometimes worse things. It’s so easy for us to get together with a group of other girls and shine a spotlight on another persons’ weakness and talk about them. And what we get really good at is trying to mask it under us “brainstorming” on how to “help” them. Or “catching” each other up on how they are doing. Knowing darn well we have ZERO intention of helping anyone. We just want to break them down to make ourselves look holy and better off than they are.  

You know what she needed? She needed people to be there with open arms when she came back home. Instead she got a cold shoulder and no one there to speak life and hope back into her. Not only does that now break my heart that breaks the heart of God. I am so glad that I have grown enough to know that I am no better than anyone else. That I am ONE bad decision away from spiraling out of control. I now know that my place as a daughter of God is to bring the lost home and to ALWAYS extend grace and mercy, even when I don’t understand decisions that are being made. Do I need to agree with them? No. Do I need to point my finger in their face and tell them that they are wrong, unholy, unworthy? ABSOLUTELY NOT! What I have are words of life. Of hope. Of love. Of grace. Of mercy. I have been given weapons from God, not to use on another person but to defend and protect those who are too weak to protect and defend themselves. They are not just defensive weapons but they are OFFENSIVE weapons. I will now go spider monkey crazy on the devil when he tries to take out one of my friends or another child of God. I will no longer allow myself to be so bored that I will turn my boredom on another person and peck them to death to make myself feel productive. What I have learned was that I was so insecure about who I was that I felt like I had to kick another person when they were down to make myself look dominant. I have learned that I must become less so that Christ can become more in me. And that includes humbling myself and admitting when I was nothing but a Pharisee setting up walls to keep those who needed mercy, out. I was used as a tool of the enemy to cause division and to intentionally hurt another person. Never again. We don’t have to do this to each other anymore. We are bigger than this and we possess too much authority to give it away to the enemy.

This year reflect where you may have pecked someone to death. And recognize this is not the intent God has for us. We were not created to cause division. This year use your voice to DEFEND and PROTECT those who have gone astray. Pray for them. Speak life into them. Our words carry so much weight. We can either use them for life or for death. This year, choose to use them to build up and not tear down.