How Ducks Learn To Be Ducks

Our house sits on a lake... well, it's not really a lake - more of a pond... alright, with the current drought, it's really more of a puddle... and, if you've seen it recently, it would probably best be described as a natural aquarium. But it does have fish and turtles and ducks, so I call it a lake.

Anyway, about six weeks ago, 10 eggs hatched from the flower bed behind our house and out waddled 10 of the cutest little baby ducks you've ever seen. Since then, two have died, but we've been watching the remaining eight and have seen the harshness of nature up close and personal. When you think of ducks, you probably think of calm, peaceful animals that learn how to be calm and peaceful from their calm and peaceful mamas. But that's not always the case. For some reason, the mama duck at our house has rejected one of the surviving eight ducklings and he now basically lives on his (or her) own. Anytime he gets too close to the mama duck or the other seven ducklings, he gets attacked by his own mom. She warns him with loud quacking first and then proceeds to chase him away and even bite him if she can get close enough.

Now I don't know what this particular baby duck ever did to the mama to make her turn her back on him... but it's pretty sad to watch. Here he is having to learn how to swim (and eventually how to fly) all on his own. He is learning where to find food all on his own. He is learning how to stay away from danger all on his own. He is even having to learn how to protect himself from his own family... all on his own. And, the worst part of it all, is that he and his brothers/sisters are learning how to be ducks from a mama duck that hates one of her own ducklings.

Church At The Grove develops people to follow Jesus and make disciples. We want people to live their lives in such a way that they honor God more and more every day. During this first year, we've come across some people that have been rejected by others in some pretty harsh ways. We've built friendships with people that have a hard time trusting others (especially when it comes to spiritual matters) because they've been pushed aside before or even attacked by people that were close to them. I've talked with people over these last twelve months whose own families turned away from them years ago because they weren't "spiritual people" or because they weren't "walking with Christ." Unfortunately, that's pretty normal behavior in our church culture... we tell people to grow as followers of Jesus, but we tell them they have to do that by separating themselves from the people around them that don't follow Christ. We tell people to love God... but give them permission to hate people that don't love God. We basically set up a war between Christ followers and those that don't follow Christ... those of us that love God are the "good guys" and those that don't love God are the "enemies." We reject people and tell them to figure life out on their own.

My kids asked me why the mama duck is so mean to this one baby... I don't have a good answer for them. I ask myself, why are Christians sometimes so mean to the "rejected" people around us that don't follow Christ or mean to Christ-followers that may be slightly different on non-essential beliefs... I don't have a good answer for myself. God has called us to reflect his love to the world around us. It's tough to do that if we are always attacking someone for something.

Galatians 5:15 (NLT) says "But if instead of showing love among yourselves you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another." Maybe our impact in this culture would be stronger if we were constantly demonstrating God's love through applying the truth in His word instead of constantly being on the attack. And, at the very least, those that are watching us will get a clearer picture of what it means to be a disciple of Christ.