Chicken or Duck?

When I was a kid, I saw the Disney movie "The Ugly Dachshund" starring Dean Jones.  It was a modern adaptation of "The Ugly Duckling," the classic fable written by Hans Christian Anderson.  The Disney tale is about a Great Dane raised among Dachshunds who believed he was a Dachshund, despite the obvious differences!  It isn't until "Brutus" saw another Great Dane at a dog show that it made sense:  he had been a Great Dane among Dachshunds, but living and thinking as a Dachshund.  Instead of crawling along the ground, he stood tall and impressed the judges - and hopefully that female Great Dane too!

My dad told me a similar story about my sister and brother-in-law who keep egg-laying hens.  After my family and I left for Australia, they acquired a duck.  The duck was kept in the chicken's hutch.  Because I have two young nieces and a nephew, the chickens and the duck are pets that receive much love and attention - as only determined young children can provide!  It was always sweet to see them carrying around their chickens after catching them again and again.  My dad told me that they filled a plastic tote with water and that is when the duck discovered its element!  My mom later sent me a video and boy was the duck having fun!  The chickens couldn't be bothered, because they are chickens.  They are content to hunt and scratch.  But ducks are made for water!  They have webbed feet, oiled-feathers and down, and are designed to spend much of their lives in water.  "So there's no danger of the duck flying away?" I asked.  "Eventually it might happen," my dad replied.  "But that duck thinks it's a chicken."

Ducks and chickens are both birds, but how diverse they are!  Their beaks, feet, behaviours, calls, and places they typically live are very different.  Ducks can fly and swim almost effortlessly.  Chickens, on the other hand, do not fly and typically do not swim well.  Their wings and bodies are not designed for flight, their feet are not webbed for swimming, and their feathers become quickly saturated with water.  Being a Christian in this world is like being a duck raised among chickens.  People in the world seek after the things of the world.  People scratch out a living, acquire possessions, have children, maybe have a "nest egg," but their inevitable end always looms before them.  No chicken lives forever.

Ducks can scratch around in the dust like a chicken, but that is not what they were designed to do.  They are designed by God to fly, soaring high into the heavens.  They are meant to swim in the water, diving deep into rivers and streams to eat small fish.  Instead of one rooster for many hens, ducks for a year or sometimes more remain monogamous.  God meant for all people to be ducks, to live on a higher plane in continual fellowship with Him.  But when Adam sinned, sin passed to all men and death through sin.  Men throughout all the ages have sought after what cannot satisfy.  Man has sought to find significance in physical relationships, earning a comfortable salary, pursuing pleasure, traveling, even through religious exercises.  But this will leave a person feeling out of place, just like a duck among chickens.  A man hopefully at some point of his life looks at the chickens busy all around him, knowing the axe is being sharpened, and says, "Is this it?  Is this all there is to life - clucking, scratching, laying, and pecking each other?  I want more than this rat-race!  I was made for greater things than this!"

To that man or woman I say:  yes, you have been designed for greater things than scratching out a living on earth.  Your life is much more than eating, seeking a career, having sex, raising children, retiring, traveling, and eventually dying.  You are designed to fly and swim!  You have been designed by God to have intimate, eternal relationship with Him.  As I grow closer to Jesus Christ, the more the things of this world lose their lustre.  I'm no longer interested in scratching around and hen-pecking others.  I want to soar in worship of God in the beauty of His holiness.  I want to dive deep and swim around in that stream of Living Water issuing forth from Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.  There is much more than the little kiddie pool filled with water we have been swimming in:  there is abundant life and joy unspeakable for all who trust God and obey His Word.  Once you have lived the life of a duck - freely flying, swimming, and diving - only a fool would go back to live with the chickens confined in a small pen.  Once we have tasted and seen a life with Christ is the only life worth having, we cannot with joy return to the beggarly elements.

The pleasure we experience from earthly things will pass away.  It is not until we are adopted into the family of God as children by faith in Christ that we will finally fit in.  It is only in a relationship with God when we discover why all that time we remained empty and dissatisfied with life.  It's because we had not yet laid hold of eternal life through Jesus.  Once we see God for who He is, we discover who we are in Him.  Let us spread our wings and leave the life of a chicken behind.  "The cross before me, the world behind me.  No turning back, no turning back."