Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. Psalm 63:7
“He calls us little chickens the Scripture testifies: “As a hen gathereth her chicks under her wings.” Thus are we the Lord’s chicks; the Word thus marvellously and mystically describing the simplicity of childhood. For sometimes He calls us children, sometimes chickens, sometimes infants, and at other times sons, and “a new people,” and “a recent people.” “And my servants shall be called by a new name” (a new name, He says, fresh and eternal, pure and simple, and childlike and true), which shall be blessed on the earth.
And again, He figuratively calls us colts unyoked to vice, not broken in by wickedness; but simple, and bounding joyously to the Father alone; not such horses “as neigh after their neighbors’ wives, that are under the yoke, and are female-mad;” but free and new-born, jubilant by means of faith, ready to run to the truth, swift to speed to salvation, that tread and stamp under foot the things of the world.
Clement of Alexandria (c.150-c.215) in The Instructor Book 1 Chapter Five (Roberts-Donaldson English Translation).
Don’t miss the wisdom here from the good instructor for you and I as the Lord’s little chickens and colts. Ponder this word picture for a while.
This should inspire us to see ourselves rightly, to pursue lives of childlike faith, and to lives of simplicity which positions us look like new people who practice radical generosity.
Does the little chick under the wing of the Lord worry about provision? Of course not! Is the colt “unyoked to vice” and “not broken in by wickedness” in the right position to be trained? Yes.
That’s us. And notice how neighbors come into view. We are not horses that neigh after anything our neighbor possesses, which positions us to practice the love of neighbor that the Lord desires.
So what’s the takeaway today? Picture yourself as the Lord’s little chicken or as a colt from now on. This should free you worry, remind you of the Lord’s tender care, and motivate you to yoke to righteousness.
When you do, I promise you will start to realize what it means to be the “new people” the Lord wants us to be because we have so much in the way of worldly thinking to unlearn.