They Will Make It Home

Read: Galatians 6:7-10

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.                                                                                                 Galatians 6:7 

     Growing up out in the country, we had a pretty large chicken pen. At any point in time, you would find around fifty chickens. (When your family consists of ten children, your parents need work to occupy them and eggs to feed them, so it worked out well.) We had converted an old tool shed into a coop where the chickens could roost and lay eggs. We rotated chores, but every night, someone had the responsibility of making sure all the chickens were in and that the doors were closed. That was the job every one of us wanted because it was so easy. There were never any chickens to shoo into the coop because they instinctively knew what they were supposed to do. The job was “so easy” because all you really had to do was close the door behind them – they went to their roosting boxes every single night, without exception. The phrase “when the chickens come home to roost” has become synonymous with actions coming back upon the person who committed them – because the chickens always come back.

     Young men seem particularly unaware of how their actions affect them, especially when it comes to their lack of seriousness. I don’t want you to get the impression that you can never have any fun or that it is shameful to laugh at something, but many young men lack the wisdom to distinguish between laughing at a joke and being a “jokester.” Some young men never find a time to be serious. Everywhere they go with their friends, they are looking for a laugh. For example, they make fun of teachers behind their backs, or even, when they get bold enough, to their faces, to get a laugh. They go out in public, and they have to be the ones that are always doing foolish things just to get their friends shaking their heads and saying, “I can’t believe he just did that.” They poke fun at everyone and everything, not caring whose feelings they hurt in the process, just so they can feel the attention of laughter from their friends.

     Some day the “chickens will come home to roost” for this person. Everything is a joke now, but wait until you are facing problems like seeing your child in a hospital room needing serious surgery or your wife on the edge of death with cancer. Things become serious very quickly then, but you won’t know how to handle it. Everything is no longer fun and games then, but you won’t know how to pray or how to comfort those who need you. There is nothing wrong with light-heartedness, but make sure that does not characterize your life. Learn to be serious now because when the chickens come home to roost and the tables are turned, you will find that life is not the big joke you thought it was.

Quote of the day: “He that can compose himself is wiser than he that composes books.”         – Franklin