Stupid guineas

My son and his uncle from Dallas made a trip last spring to the "outskirts" of Corsicana to purchase a few guineas. Actually, Uncle Darin and Brazos bought 16 to be exact. We raised them for the first month or so in a small coop to keep them safe. Their homestead then progressed to a larger 10 by 10 pen. They lived in that larger coop for another few months. We threw them food in each day and kept their water fresh. The high point of their day must have been, if I can put myself in the shoes of a hungry and potentially bored guinea, when the kids slid fresh grass under sides of paneling to give them a bit of real vegetation.

Why did we practice animal cruelty and keep them so long in captivity? We cautiously protected the birds until they were old enough to hopefully fly up and away from the many predators that surround us. (We did not do so well with our first batch last year. We let our group of guineas out too quickly and never saw them again....except for the trail of feathers leading into the woods.) The guineas became a favorite past time for us. When Brazos and I went into feed them or change our their water, one or two would usually escape. That meant we were together on a mission to catch them. We used quick feet, quick hands, and a big net. Brazos did tell me one day that I was the best Mom in the world because I helped him catch his guineas as we walked together out of breath to the house. The only reason we were ever successful at catching any of the feathered fugitives is because even when they got past us and the gate, they would stay right around the edge of the pen just lingering and looking at their cell mates. Imagine that...escaping into freedom and then not making a run or a fly for it!

Much to my surprise, my husband decided one Saturday morning EARLY last summer that it was time to release them from their pen and let them enjoy a life of freedom. He is an early bird himself and went out to the pen right after daylight to open the gate, expecting that within a minute or two the pen would be empty. Even if they had succeeded so many times before escaping, as luck would have it, on the first morning of their freedom, none of them would leave the pen. One word comes to mind...stupid! (Yes, the guineas being stupid... and not my husband!) Branden even went into the pen and tried to "shoo" them out. They would not leave the pen. They continued to run around in a circle and refused to exit! Just thinking of it makes me dizzy.

At this point, Branden came back home to wake me up, a bit earlier than I would have liked, to get me to come into the pen with him so we could TOGETHER run them out. I asked him for 10 more minutes of sleep like I usually do. By the time I was up and had my first cup of coffee, Branden came back home and announced to me that one of them finally found his or her way out and lead the others.

Sadly, the guineas were quite comfortable in their nasty pen. The ground was dirt. There was no grass because they had eaten it all! To describe it in one word....FILTH! I did not even like going in it and often tiptoed around if I was in my good shoes. Even when they were all free finally and should have gotten as far away as possible from their miserable living conditions, they still stood by the pen for a bit and lingered still.
Maybe they were scared ???
Perhaps the thought of going back into the tiny pen compared to the open acreage here seemed safer???
Maybe they were just simply stuck in the past and did not know what to do next???
It is also quite possible that they were dizzy and disorientated from running around in a circle for so long.

It occurred to me that day when I replayed the events in my head that in many ways, I too have behaved like the STUPID guineas from time to time.
I have been scared of the unknown when it came to a new job possibilities.
I have been so set in my ways that when the Lord wanted to show me something new, I refused to leave my old thoughts, habits, and behaviors.
I have even believed lies that there was no way out of several dead-end situations in my life.
I still find myself going around and around in circles when I know the Lord must be saying...."Will you just follow me out of this? Get behind me, stop insisting you lead, and follow me."
Maybe I am the only one guilty of settling for so little. We have been promised that by simply obeying Christ after accepting His free gift of salvation that we can have more than just a little, mediocre life.

When Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, He freed us! In guinea talk, we no longer have to stay in the little, dirty pen, and helplessly run around in a vicious circle living in the same miserable cycles. We are free! We have been set free. Our life has been bought. Our sin has been paid for. We can not expect life to be perfect and free from trials, but we can rest assured that we do not have to be held captive by sin and the lies of the enemy. Wouldn't the devil like nothing more than to see us waste years of our life going around and around the same loop? If our enemy can keep us captive and in the same, old patterns of sin and defeat, God is not getting glory from our lives.

Isaiah 61 touches on all of this. I first marked it in my Bible back in 2002. It struck a chord with me then and still brings me to my knees in 2011. The Word here in the Old Testament is a promise of what is to come in the life of Jesus in the New Testament. It says "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and to release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion - to bestow on them a crown on beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord, for the display of his splendor."

That my friends, is not a life of meaningless confusion or captivity in any form or fashion. That is freedom. Broken hearts can be mended, captives can be free, and despair can be transformed into praise. If the door or the gate is pushed wide open and your promise is waiting, do not linger. Follow Christ and step into freedom.