My funny flock of chickens that free range the “Ranchito” have gotten braver and braver lately. In search of the first greens of Spring, they have wandered far from the confines of the coop. In the front yard they are loving the morning showers that the sprinklers bring, and in the back they have found the dog food bowls and get caught stealing it red-beaked everyday. 
Friends and guests, whether kids or grown-ups are always taken aback when one of my friendly hens come puffing her way right up onto the front porch. I think they add a bit of charm and character to the place, others may say a bit of crazy. Either way, here they are.
About this time of year you better believe that I put those girls to work! Their free-loading days of winter are over! I lure them into my soon-to-be planted garden with scraps from the kitchen and a bag of mealworms, and let them get busy on that fallow ground. You see, chickens scratch. That’s what they do. They are constantly clawing and pecking at the ground looking for bugs, worms, and weeds to consume. And while they are essentially tilling the earth, they are (ah-hem) fertilizing it as well. It’s a win-win for us all. They get the tasty treats right below the surface, and I get soft, fertilized, de-bugged soil.
But planting day is quickly approaching! As soon as those tiny vegetable plants go gingerly into the ground, as soon as those seeds begin to sprout, the garden will become a “no chicken zone.” The gate will be locked and those same beaks and feet that served me well in the past will be banned until next year. You see, my silly hens don’t know the difference between a weed and a tomato plant, a dandelion and a zucchini. Left to roam and scratch in the wrong season they would pull up every bit of fruit (or veggies) I am trying to grow.
What was helpful in one season is destructive in another.
I have been in a scratching season myself lately. Maybe it’s the whole turning 40 thing. Maybe it’s the door closing on more babies and the familiarity of that role, as my children shoot up like the weeds on my lawn. Maybe it’s the powerful and scary pull into new ventures. Where am I fearful, where am I holding back, where am I wounded? What am I good at? Where am I weak? I have honestly been praying for insight and revelation into why I am the way I am about some things. I have asked the Lord to show me how I got into some places of the heart and spirit I might not want to stay. “What is the root of this insecurity? Where is the worm of pride or anxiety buried deep? What happened in the past that I need to dig up and fertilize with the Truth of God’s word?” Scratch, scratch, scratch. And it has been good, and hard, and healing, and painful all at once. It has led to much confession and repentance. It has brought down walls of long-employed defenses. It has started much needed conversations. My scratching season has allowed Jesus to get at some deep places where the ground of my heart has been too hard in the past.
But, at some point the scratching has to cease to let the growth begin.
Of course we never move out of a confessing season. When we close the gate on repentance we wade into dangerous waters indeed. But the tilling up of the past must give way to the sowing of new seeds, the tending of new ways, and the eventual harvesting of God glorifying fruit in our lives. After all, Jesus says in John 15:8, “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” The fruit cannot grow in ground that is always being scratched up. Not in my garden and not in my life. What was helpful in one season can be destructive, growth-stunting, and maybe even self-indulgent in another.
Isaiah 43:19 says, “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” My fear is that we indeed do not perceive it. If we are constantly looking down to scratch at old ground, if we are continuing to look back at old hurts, if we are always looking inside at our old selves, we may miss Spring.
So Friends, let’s certainly do the work of tilling up the hard ground of our hearts when they are overgrown with the weeds of past offenses, old sins, destructive thought patterns, and just general fruitlessness. There is a season for scratching. There is a time for relinquishing it all to our Father and letting His Spirit reveal, forgive, heal, and then fertilize those fallow places with His Word. But then there is a season for newness! It’s Spring! A season to focus on, and protect the seed He is growing in our lives. 2 Corinthians 5:17 declares, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”
For now my scratching season is over. I don’t want to stay too long digging up the old that I hinder the new. I am hopeful that the work my chickens are doing this Spring will produce a fruitful garden this summer. And I am confident the work the Holy Spirit and I did will produce a harvest in due time. (Galatians 6:9)
In his second letter to Timothy, Paul says “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline.” II Timothy 1:6-7. My mother is a stunning example of this for me. There are few women more simple than she. She is extraordinarily easy to please. Picky is not even in her vocabulary. She is emotionally sure and stable, never one to rise and fall on a whim. Her world is pretty small and she likes it like that. Her countertops are spotless. But every Wednesday morning for as long as I can remember she has taught in-depth, Precept Bible Study for 75-100 women. And she brings it like a boss. She gets up there, with her handwritten notes, her overhead projector, and her unparalleled knowledge of the Word and she straight up fans into flame the gift of God without an ounce of timidity! When my eyes adjust, that’s what I see over on the other side. I want to be just like her.
