The Chicken Mechanism
Sometimes it’s a blessing.
Sometimes it’s a curse.
I just thought of a name for it today. I call it the chicken mechanism.
What is the chicken mechanism?
Part of it is my conscience that allows me to show fear when I have done something wrong. It kicks in and makes me want to make things right. I remember “borrowing” a bat and glove out of a neighbor’s yard when I was a little boy. The chicken mechanism bawked at me for hours for hours. It scratched the ground in search of a kernel of corn to turn up – that one piece of evidence to betray me. Finally, after hours, I went and threw bat and glove back in the neighbor’s yard. Thanks to the chicken mechanism, I was too chicken to become a criminal and it helped soothe my conscience. Who knows? I might be in prison today if I weren’t such a big chicken.
The other part of the chicken mechanism can be a curse. It is the lump that I would feel in my heart when I was in school and asked a girl out, fearing that she would laugh me to scorn, or – worse – that she would put me in the friend zone. Believe me, both happened with regularity.
The chicken mechanism can make you realize that you are doing something wrong, and help you out, or it can rob you of your self-confidence. It’s part reason and part cowardice.
I didn’t realize at the time when I took the bat and ball that it was my conscience bothering me. I knew that stealing was wrong; I just didn’t realize that I would have such a hard time dealing with it. As I grew, my conscience thankfully, by the grace of God, became much stronger. I have seen others who seem to have no conscience at all. They didn’t have their chicken mechanism operating at full cluck, teaching them right from wrong or, more likely, they put cotton in their ears and stopped listening and tuned out what was right, tuning out God in the process. God will let them have their conscience – their chicken mechanism, if you will – if they just ask Him into their hearts.
As I grew older, I was able to grow more self-confident. I became able to communicate with others. I became able to express myself. I can even tell people I know about Jesus Christ being my Savior now. I have to admit that when I was a teenager, I had a problem with that also. That chicken mechanism wouldn’t let me crow like a rooster about Christ saving me and I walked away for a while, but one night, I found my way back.
Do you have your own chicken mechanism? Are you afraid of doing wrong? Are you afraid of telling others about Jesus Christ?
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