Rachel Whisman

The little chicks began chirping their sweet and innocent tune. My students began nagging me endlessly, their curiosity and amazement shining in their precious and innocent eyes. 

“But Ms.Whisman, can we please keep Pepper?” 

“We can build Oreo a home and I will water them!” 

One of my students even jokingly quoted a movie saying, “I shall call him squishy, and he shall be mine.” 

Backing it up a little bit, the week before spring break, my class got to observe five chicks hatch from our incubator. They watched them struggle as each baby chick pecked their way out of its shell and into this crazy world. Their favorite part was when they each got to take a moment and hold these bundles of joy. My boy’s tough bravado quickly melted as they held a delicate chick. My girl’s hands were ready to take in, nurture, and calm them as long as they could. My heart mellowed and tension was alleviated as I got to stop and witness this pure and innocent moment. 

After everyone had a turn, they continued to make requests to me to keep them in the classroom. I know with certainty that these little baby chicks can not thrive within the four walls of my classroom. Although adorable, they are not meant to live inside. I had a better plan for where these little guys would end up staying. 

Watching them plead to me to give them what they desired so badly at that moment reminded me of myself. No, I don’t want to keep a chick but I do have desires. I have wants, wishes, hopes, and dreams for myself just like my students. I think they’re good and knowing my Father, I go to Him with them. I earnestly beg with giddiness and excitement and ask, “God, I really want ________. Lord, please let it happen.” Just like I am the adult to my students and know what is best, God is my Father and He knows what’s best even if I don’t. 

My students are blinded by their limited knowledge and wisdom and so am I. Through His providence, which are the events that unfold before us, God has responded to me with, “No, Rachel” or “That’s not the best thing for you right now.” Like my children, I can react and sulk or bemoan at Him for not giving me what I want or I can choose to trust Him and who He is. For the students who trusted me and accepted when I told them, “Sorry, but I can’t let us keep the chicks” it warmed my heart. How much more lovely would it be unto God when we trust in His answers? To the students who hesitated to show approval of my choice, I did not chide them but remembered they were but children and they did not know everything. How much more for the God who created us and “knows our frame; He remembers that we are but dust.” (Psalm 103:14).

It is not silly to ask God for things. He tells us to come and ask (Matthew 7:7-11). What would be silly is to forget that we are “but dust as well” My desires, however pure and upright they might be, might not be the best thing for me. I am still a child. I am not God. Ultimately, He knows what is best, and trusting Him takes faith, to believe in the “assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not yet seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Fortunately, God helps us abundantly in our faith and “the Spirt helps us in our weakness” (Romans 6:26) and Christ filters our requests to God (Hebrews 7:25). 

Our class said goodbye to the little chicks and I took them home to my neighbor, who had a coop waiting for them. The following day, my kids still asked me why I took them home. I explained again that it was better for them to be elsewhere. Some understood and some didn’t. That week was a much-needed reminder of my identity. I am far more like my second-grade students with their requests to the Lord than I realized, how humbling. As well as, how truly wonderful it is to be His daughter and have Him as my Father. A Father, who is full of gentleness and love and able to attend to all the requests I bring to Him. To then turn and answer or decline them in His inscrutable wisdom. What a privilege we have. May we trust in His more.

As a child, that is willing to present his father with a posy (small bundle of flowers), goes into the garden, and there gathers some flowers and some weeds together, but coming to his mother, she picks out the weeds and binds the flowers, and so it is presented to the father; thus we have put up our prayers, Christ comes, and picks away the weeds, the sin of our prayer, and presents nothing but flowers to His Father, which is a sweet-smelling savor. 

-Thomas Watson, A Divine Cordial