I don’t remember ever having heard or read this before, but a conversation about my daughter brought this immediately into light. She is building the cutest little designer décor chicken coop. Don’t ask. No one understands the reasoning or the why. She doesn’t live on a farm and has never had chickens before. She knows that all this time, effort, and money will soon be a wasteland of chicken catastrophe. Yet, she continues.
To each their own.
A member of the prayer team asked me recently what I had been into... the coop came to mind. “Is she going to raise them for the eggs, the meat, or both?” “Well,” I replied, “...most of them already have names, so I am assuming just the former. Besides, if she ate the chickens, she would have no eggs.”
Jesus often taught profound truths through simple pictures: seeds, vineyards, lamps, fishermen, bread, and fields. In the same manner of thinking, there is wisdom hidden also in this very simple statement: "If you eat the chicken, you'll have no eggs."
At first, it sounds like common sense, right?!
But spiritually, it reveals a problem many Christians’ find themselves facing; we often consume what God intended us to cultivate. We sacrifice the eternal for the immediate. And we trade multiplication for momentary satisfaction.
The Kingdom of God is built on a principle that often feels backward to the natural mind (the upside-down Kingdom): what God wants to multiply must first be stewarded.
A farmer who eats every seed will never have a harvest.
A believer who spends every moment pursuing comfort will never discover the deeper things of God.
A church that consumes all its resources on itself will never reach the lost.
A disciple who seeks only blessings may never mature into someone through whom blessings flow.
The temptation is always the same for most of mankind: Consume everything now, live in the now, enjoy the moment... Trust later. Figure out the rest at another time. Catch up later, at some random point.
But God's invitation is different: Trust now. Receive later.
This is why Scripture repeatedly calls believers to think beyond the present moment. Think about this...
Esau traded his entire birthright for nothing more than a simple bowl of stew.
Israel longed for the comfort of Egypt, a land they once wanted to escape, while God was leading them toward a promised land.
Judas exchanged eternal significance for thirty measly pieces of silver.
In every case, something greater was exchanged for something much lesser and immediate.
They ate the chicken and lost the eggs.
As Christians, without even knowing it, many of us do the very same thing. God gives them time, but they spend it entirely on themselves. He gives them influence, but they use it for recognition rather than ministry. He gives them resources, but they never ask how those resources might advance His Kingdom. He gives them spiritual gifts, but fear keeps them buried.
What was intended for multiplication becomes consumed by the present.
What has God placed in your hands that He intended to multiply?
Your time?
Your testimony?
Your resources?
Your spiritual gifts?
Your calling?
Your influence?
Your opportunities?
Not everything God gives us is meant to be spent immediately.
Some things are meant to be stewarded faithfully until they produce fruit far beyond what we can presently imagine. As with other wise parables, consider this one carefully- in the Kingdom of God, wisdom understands a truth that impatience cannot see: If you eat the chicken, you'll have no eggs.
If you faithfully steward what God has entrusted to you, what seems small today may become a blessing that feeds generations tomorrow.
~ Devin
Devin Osborne
The Early Church
