What we can learn from a Little Chick’s World

A Devotional for Kids!

Twenty one sets of eyes were focused on the plastic dome of the incubator.  My preschoolers and I were watching the arrival of a baby chick into the world.  We saw a tiny beak break through and heard the cracking of the shell as the opening widened. Some of the youngsters gave up after awhile and went to play but two or three stayed at their post all morning to see what a baby chick looked like.

The next morning when I arrived at school I noticed there were three chicks hatched.  Two were strutting around and gobbling up the food.  At intervals they were also pecking at the smallest chick.  He didn’t look healthy.  He huddled at the edge of the incubator and just sat there. I wondered why the other chicks didn’t like him. He wasn’t like them.  He was a weakling so they hit on him.

Photo by Rich Moffitt

If you had seen John the Baptist you might have thought you wanted nothing to do with him. He wore rough camels’ hair with a leather belt around his waist and he ate locusts and wild honey. I think of locusts as grasshoppers.  I remember a time in our back yard when John the Baptist would have had a feast.

We lived at the edge of the city’s development in Lethbridge some years ago.  There was a farmer’s field behind our property.  It was a very dry year and by August there were grasshoppers everywhere, even sitting on our back door.  For some reason they didn’t eat my garden but I saw a picture in our local newspaper where they ate everything in a person’s garden, except the bare stalks of broccoli and cabbage. I was very thankful for the rain that fall and the deep snow in winter after that.

God loves each one of us and accepts our personalities.  Sometimes we stay away from certain people in our circles because we say they turn us off or they rub us the wrong way; they irritate us or are so different than us.  We don’t want to deal with our differences with them.

 Jesus taught the multitudes to love even those who are hard to love. “If you love only those who love you, what good is that?  Even scoundrels do that much.  If you are friendly only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else?  Even the heathen do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.”  Matthew 5:46 to 48 [The Living Bible]

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I want to walk with you spiritually this year, inviting you to read the Bible through from cover to cover; from Genesis 1 all the way to Revelation 22:21.  If that sounds too difficult for you and your kids, you can join in again after you have taken a break or join us for the days you’re up to it.  We will start on Sunday, January 18th and finish Saturday, January 16, 2010.  I promise that you will understand the Bible in a much deeper way if you read it through from cover to cover in a year’s time.

Accept my challenge to read the Bible through in one year chronologically, including the Old and the New Testament.

I’m going to give you an extra challenge for the next few days only. We need to read 2 days readings each day until we catch up on the right day of the year, so we can finish by December 31, 2009. 

Day46: Today read:
Exodus 39:1-40:38
Mark 1:1-28
Psalm 35:1-16
Proverbs 9:11-12

Day 47:
Leviticus 1:1-3:17
Mark 1:29-2:12
Psalm 35:17-28
Proverbs 9:13-18

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