Something to Crow About

We don’t know where he came from. He just showed up one morning last week? One thing’s for sure, he is the ugliest, most beat-up, ragged looking creature ever to invade our lives. There is no telling where he’s been and what he’s been through, but he looks like a strung-out addict run over by a truck. Looking at his naked butt I am amazed he can walk. One thing, however, still worked fine, his crow. Yes, at first sunlight that rooster crowed and crowed some more, in fact he got into a full-blown crowing competition with the neighbor’s rooster.Looking like he does, his feathers, where he still has them, look more like shaggy fur than feathers. I already mentioned his derriere, which is literally a sore sight. You would think the fellow would have nothing to crow about, but you would be dead wrong. This guy would never win a ribbon at the fair. In fact he looks like a pack of coyotes got a hold of him and one by one spit him back out. You would think he’d tone it down a bit, but no, he greets every new day with gusto, and there is no way he is going to let my neighbor’s pretty boy outshine him in giving his morning praise.Maybe, you are wondering what makes me think he is giving praise to God each morning and not simply doing what roosters do in the morning? Have you ever watched birds in the morning, how they greet the day? Before they get all busy with their day they take time to sing, or crow if it’s a rooster. They welcome the day, they’re glad to be alive, and they have reason to praise because even if they’re not aware of it, “ Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?” Matthew 6:26-27 (NLT). I’m not always like that rooster. I don’t greet every day like that, do you? I forget the praise when life beats me up, when things are raw and sore, when I feel lost or out of place, when life feels terrible. I lose the simplicity that greets each day as gift, that simplicity of faith that my Heavenly Father knows how to and will take care of me. I stop singing, crowing, not because I forgot the songs or lost my ability to praise, but because I let worry fool me into thinking that so much depends on me. I can get so turned around that I miss the daily invitation to offer praise to the one who gives me life and breath, “Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD!” Psalm 150:6 (NASB). That rooster sure hasn’t forgotten.Come to think of it, with everything going on in my life over the past few weeks that rooster showing up was anything but an accident. Thank you God, thank you my Heavenly Father, you are glorious, and kind, and have a terrific sense of humor.To God be all glory, love you, Pastor Hans