ARE YOU SCRATCHING FOR A LIVING ?
by Rev. Lee Shelley, Founding President

There is one hen that particularly interests me. She is located at Knotts Berry Farm in the greater Los Angeles area. She is in the barnyard section where visitors walk through. On one side of the chicken yard, a rope dangles attached to a small gate at the top of a chute on the other side.

This chicken has learned that she can take hold of the rope with her beak and, by giving a yank, a few grains of corn will be released down the chute about fifteen feet away. If you want to study "chicken nature," you should watch this hen in action.

She will run over to the rope and yank it and then dash to the chute to gobble up the corn. When the few grains are consumed, this busy fowl runs, not walks, back to the rope to give it another yank. She is a "conditioned hen" for sure.

I stood there for a long time watching "Mrs. Enterprise" in the "chicken race." After visiting other pens in this farm area, I stopped back by to see our busy hen again before leaving--and she hadn't slackened her pace one bit. This muscular, well-padded hen was really in business.

I couldn't help but liken this whole operation to a lot of humans I know…including some Christians. They are running back and forth "tugging on the rope" to release some grains. They are in the "chicken race" (sometimes called the "rat race") and are wearing themselves down for a few measly grains.

Now, don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong in good, hard work and we highly recommend it. On the other hand, it is a pitiful picture to see a man grinding out his life for nothing more than a pay check to purchase a few grains.

He may spend his day tightening nuts on bolts or taken them off, and abhor every minute of it. He may long to be creative and do something that will live on after him…but he grinds on for the few grains. He is so conditioned that the fear of being without drives him on in the rat race.

There is a better way…and a lot of people I know have found it. "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat…what ye shall put on…life is more than meat…but seek ye first the kingdom of God…." In contemporary terms, "Don't worry about supply. Make the kingdom of God your primary concern, and I'll take care of the grains."

The "chicken race" is wearing down a lot of God's people. And, surprisingly, after so much scratching and tugging, too many people can look around the house and garage and, to their dismay, discover that much of it still isn't theirs. It belongs to the finance company.

We have students in our missionary school from a variety of positions and places, who became so fed up with the "chicken race" that they chucked it all and are in process of making the kingdom of God their primary concern.

They are the happiest group of people that you will ever see. They can spend each day in the Bible and winning the lost. This has a way of giving unlimited dimension to the Christian life by putting eternal values where they belong.

Before long, the greatest event will transpire in the students' lives. They will be commissioned in the highest job on earth -- that of a missionary. You should see the faces of these graduates as they start the count-down toward departure for their global mission fields. They have escaped the rat race and are now in the greatest race of their lives--and that for the souls of men.

Why not let "Mrs. Enterprise," our ambitious hen, deliver her message loud and clear? If you are tired of tugging on the rope and scratching for a few grains to put into a decaying body, remember God has a better plan. Get in touch with us as so many others have.

We are one of God's "employment agencies" and have some choice positions to offer on the global scene for those who are tired of scratching for a living.

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