This farm lesson was a first for me. And hopefully an only.

This happened last month.

We were about to leave for church, and we were actually going to be on time for Sunday school for the first time in a while.

Buuuuuuuuuut…

There was a chicken in our van.

Yep. A real, live hen from our farm. Standing in the passenger seat of my vehicle, doing what chickens do.

Aside from laying eggs, they lay something else. And lots of it.

Poop.

And. It. Was. Everywhere.

On the seats.
On the floor.
On the center console.
On the dashboard.

In. The. Cup. Holders.

How did the chicken get in the van, you might ask?

Well, the way all chickens get inside of anything. Through an open door.

Yesterday while my husband and son were unloading groceries and animal feed from the back of the van, they left the lift gate up, and that’s when the curious hen jumped inside.

Then somehow the hen was missed, because who thinks a chicken has snuck into their van while their back was turned? (For the record, we do. Now.)

And for an entire afternoon and night, until this morning, that hen had free reign of the van.

And boy, did she leave her mark.

Thanks to quick thinking, some odor and stain spray, bottles of heavy duty degreaser and disinfecting spray, and some Dude Wipes (now called Doody Wipes), we got the van cleaned up. We sat on towels, and we were able to finally leave for church – about half an hour later than we had intended, but we still made it in time to Sunday school, and we were only a little bit late.

While on the way to church, the kids were lamenting being late and somewhat upset about the inconvenience of the chicken in the van and all the havoc she caused. How it was gross to have to clean up so much chicken poop from a place where poop never should have been.

(For the record, I’ve been told by people that I have a lot of “unfortunate poop stories” in my mom experience arsenal, but those instances have always involved my children in some way… I never thought I’d add a chicken’s poop adventure to my repertoire. And also, not that it’s pertinent to the story, but Heath wasn’t even here when we discovered the chicken, as he’d already gone on to church ahead of us for his turn on the church’s security team. These things always seem to happen when he’s not around. Not the point. I digress.)

And as we were driving down the road to church, I was talking to the kids about it. How even in tough circumstances, we can still have good attitudes (not that I have a storied history of said good attitude). A good attitude in a bad situation is still better than a bad attitude in that same situation. We can either laugh and come up with a creative solution, making the most of it, or we can sulk and complain, making everyone else around us even more miserable than they already are. As if the poor circumstances aren’t awful enough, let’s add grumbling and complaining to it. Now everyone is irritated in addition to the annoyance of having to clean up chicken poop.

And while I’m talking to them about good attitudes, I realized (and shared this with the kids) that this whole situation is a whole lot like the sin in our lives.

If our hearts are the van and the chicken is sin, then the poop all over the van is the effect of the chicken being there. Somewhere it was never meant to be.

We could have cleaned up all that poop, but if we’d left the chicken in the van, it would have continued to leave its mark. It would have been an uphill battle, and eventually the poop would have just taken over everything.

Sin is like that.

We can run the van through a car wash, wax it, and make it look great on the outside. But if the chicken is still running amok on the inside, then it doesn’t much matter. The outside of the van is bright and shiny, but the inside is covered in doody.

Now, the beauty on the outside of the van might fool some people for a while, but all it would take is to open a door, and all illusions of cleanliness would be shattered.

Upon seeing the truth, who would want to step inside and take a ride for even five minutes?

Who would want to drive that van?

No one.

Absolutely no one.

And yet so often we ride around in our spiritual vans with chicken poop on the seats.

We think no one sees the truth. Maybe we can fake it for a while. Maybe some of us are really good at it. My dad – a pastor’s kid – was an excellent actor for a really long time and probably could have passed for Christian indefinitely. He was really good at it and knew all the right answers, but he was full of – well… you know.

Maybe we don’t realize we have a chicken (literal or metaphorical) in our van at all. But once we do – once we realize the truth – the only thing we can do is get it out of there.

I’m really thankful that Jesus makes a way for this to happen in my own heart and soul. When I’m hurt, angry, upset, have feelings of despair, behave in unbecoming ways because of those negative feelings, and otherwise have a bad attitude or act ugly, I’m reminded of who I am in Him, because of Him and what He did for me on the cross. I can only have a clean heart because of Him.

And I’m so very thankful for His love, mercy, and forgiveness. He is always faithful to forgive and justify whenever I go to Him with all of these things, with a contrite heart, ready for reconciliation.

He gets the chicken out of the van and then cleans it up. Because sin stinks, just like chicken poop.

And incidentally, I have an appointment to get my van professionally cleaned and detailed tomorrow, which was probably already a good idea anyway.

But you know, chicken poop sort of moved up that priority. By a lot.

So the lesson of all of this is both practical and spiritual.

1. Don’t leave the lift gate up on the van and then leave it unattended. And if you do, do a quick scan of the vehicle just in case. Because chickens.
2. As soon as you realize there’s a chicken, get it out of your van. Rather, get the sin out of your heart. I promise, it’s way easier to do that spiritually than practically. And far less expensive.