His Sheep (and Chicks) Know His Voice

We moved back to the church we started out youth pastoring at a little over a year ago. We have a lot of land where we live now, and most importantly, we are just outside city limits.

We love animals but have kept it to a cat and at the most, two dogs. Even that was kinda hard sometimes living right beside the main road. But now, we have space for (and we’re allowed to have) all the animals we want! 

My daughter has always wanted a horse and when we first moved, she begged for one. We talked her down to chickens. I grew up with animals all around me and knew that chickens are pretty low maintenance, and they give you breakfast every morning so it was a win/win! 

Well, we decided that we would like to have a few more so a couple weeks ago, I got six chicks. They are the sweetest things!! Since they were so little, I could keep all six of them in a cat crate in my bathroom. We’ve moved up to a bigger crate now. Those things grow really fast! 

We had a couple nice days, and you have to be careful about introducing chicks to the older chickens, so I thought I would take them outside so they could get some sunshine and see if the older chickens came over to check them out. 

Well, as we were sitting there, our rooster, Tyrone, (my son named him, ha!) crowed. Now as far as I know, the chicks had never heard a rooster crow before. I had gotten them when they were tiny babies. But when he crowed, those chicks lost their minds. They started running all over the place. One chick was standing on the container with water in it getting a drink and fell completely in. 

Each time he crowed, the response usually wasn’t as dramatic as that one, but you could tell that the chicks paid attention to it. 

Even though they had never heard a rooster crow before, they seemed to recognize the sound and knew to pay attention. Like there was a natural connection that didn’t have to be taught. The chicks were created to recognize that sound. 

I started thinking about how humans were created to recognize the voice of God. It seems like that first experience shakes us, we don’t really understand what’s going on, but we hear something that we’re naturally drawn to. I believe that is deep calling out to deep. A God given connection that He has to His people. A calling from His spirit to ours to connect with him. We can choose to hear or ignore the voice, but He is speaking if we will listen.

When we first got chickens, I was hesitant to get a rooster. Waking up to a rooster crowing at the crack of dawn is not my idea of fun. But, I have since learned the importance of having him and now have a greater respect for roosters than I ever thought I would have. 

The rooster doesn’t just crow because he likes the way it sounds. Well, most of the time anyway. Sometimes, I think he’s just proud of himself for being able to do it. Ha! But this is a way that the rooster actually serves the hens and protects his flock. 

Sometimes he crows to let the hens know that he is there watching out for them. Almost every time I go outside, if the chickens are out, that rooster puffs up at me like he’s ready to fight to protect his girls. He never does, (he better not) but he is always the first one to me and I know that if anyone or anything tried to harm them, he would be right there taking care of them. 

Do you know that God does that for us? He goes before us. If we could only see how many times He has blocked things from happening that we don’t even know about, I’m sure we would be amazed. 

The rooster is a defender. Sometimes he crows to let the hens know that he senses danger. They say that the rooster actually has a different sound that they make when they sense danger and it causes the hens to freeze and he will fight for the hens if he needs to. 

God is our defender and He tells us in Exodus 14:14 that the Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace. I first noticed that verse a few years ago and it has spoken to me so many times since then. 

Sometimes the rooster crows to let the hens know where the good stuff is. I can watch him scratching around at the ground and almost every time he finds something, the hens will go to where he is and take advantage of his findings while he moves on to find something else.

God leads us to good things and is a giver of good gifts when we follow him, but we have to be following, watching, and listening to him. The Bible says in James 1:17 that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

Do you remember me telling you before that the chicks started running around? It was like electricity was going through them. 

This reminded me of my grandma a few years ago who was in her eighties. She was talking to someone and she said, “When God speaks, you’ve got to move!” Now she has always been known for not holding back her emotions when she felt God’s presence. Actually, one of the things I think of when I think of her is her playing her electric guitar in church, shouting and her big bow that she always wore (she had each color to go with her outfit) bouncing around. Now, she can’t even stand without help, but she still doesn’t hold anything back when it comes to praising the Lord. 

There is so much truth in her statement. When God speaks, we should be moved to action. When He says to go, we should go. When he says to do something, we should do it! But we should recognize His voice so much that when He speaks, it moves us to action, even if we just have to run around because we can feel Him so strong.   

John 10:27 says, “And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. 

I always want to be a chick that hears his voice.

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Telina Frye is the author of Dare to Dream, as well as a pastor’s wife and mother to her 13 year old son and 10 year old daughter. 

She is a singer/songwriter and a natural born dreamer. Telina is also credentialed in the Church of God as an Exhorter and holds a Minister of Music License. She serves as the worship leader at the church where her husband serves as lead pastor. 

Telina loves having deep, meaningful conversations about what is and what could be. She hopes this blog will inspire readers to dare to look past what is, see what can be, and reach for the impossible.