I’m standing in front of a menu board covered with a thousand words I’ve never seen, and my first thought is not what should I get, but what’s the word for chicken?
May 23, 2010 was the last time I intentionally ate chicken. After getting sick from chicken on two separate occasions, I swore off poultry forever and ever and that was that. Except that wasn’t that, because five and a half years later I decided to apply for the World Race. Seven months after that, I stepped onto the field and quickly realized I would no longer have the luxury of controlling what I ate, let alone the luxury of being able to read the menu in front of me.
I managed to make it through months one and two of the Race with minimal chicken crises. My team was able to cook for ourselves, and when we were invited into someone’s home for a meal, chicken wasn’t served. Success!
And then we went to Bulgaria.
One of our ministries for the month was to go out on the Ring Road and talk to women in prostitution. The Ring Road is a highway that circles the city of Stara Zagora, Bulgaria. The road has an incredible view of the city—mountains in the background, Roma villages scrawled along the outskirts, and so very beautiful. The Ring Road, however, is also so very ugly.
On this road, there is significant loss and emptiness; women go to this road to sell their bodies, and hungry men go there knowing what they’ll find. We talked to women who refused the food and drink we offered, not because they didn’t want them, but because their “husbands” wouldn’t allow the extra calories. We talked to women who changed their hair color weekly, sometimes daily, because their “husbands” wanted them to be more memorable to customers. These “husbands” are not the loving men these women likely dreamed of marrying as young girls. These “husbands” are men who are convinced they own these women, and who have convinced these women that they truly do. They are men who make a living off evil deeds done each day. On this road I saw what it meant to be truly trapped in something like prostitution. I caught a glimpse of what life would be like as one of these women: what it meant to be caught by the police, what it meant if your “husband” found you talking instead of working, what it meant to be working, and what it meant to not.
We met a lot of women on the road that month, but one in particular stood out—an exceptionally feisty and boisterous woman named “Effie.” Some of the things Effie said to us were blunt and borderline insulting, but all in the name of fun. To be poked fun of by Effie meant she wanted to laugh. To be poked fun of by Effie meant she was comfortable.
After visiting her on the road a couple of times, Effie informed our host that she wanted to teach us how to make her favorite meal. I can’t explain what an honor that was—that she enjoyed our company enough to choose to spend time with us. To make a visitor a meal is to show a great amount of hospitality and love, and to have Effie make and teach us how to make a meal was something exceptionally special. I was thrilled until I found out what Effie’s favorite meal was. She wanted to teach us how to make “chicken the right way.” Ha. Uh, what? No. I was so excited that Effie wanted to show us how to make her favorite meal, but I did NOT want to eat chicken. I knew going into this Race that I would probably encounter a situation where someone would expect me to eat chicken, but I was not ready for it to be now.
Two options: politely refuse the chicken, or eat it and risk getting sick. It might sound like a simple, silly choice to you (chicken lover), but the thought of having to make this decision made me anxious. Something else I knew going into this Race, however, was that I absolutely did not want my issues with chicken to be a stumbling block for what it looks like to love like Jesus. I knew that refusing the chicken, no matter how politely, would be an insult.
It had almost been seven years since my last piece of chicken. The first couple of years after I stopped eating poultry, the smell or sight of chicken—even the thought, made me nauseous. After a while, however, those things didn’t have an effect on me. I simply refused to eat chicken out of habit. I would even sometimes crave fried chicken, but I refused to eat it because “I don’t eat chicken.” It was something about myself that I was used to and had absolutely no desire to change. I had even come to like it about myself. “Hi, my name is Morgan and I don’t eat poultry.”
We all have a “chicken.” Our chicken is something that keeps us from walking in full health—how we were created to operate, and it is something we have no desire to change. It’s not a sin to not eat chicken, but the reason I wasn’t eating it had changed. I was no longer walking in full health, because I was set in my ways, stagnant and content with my issues. I wasn’t just refusing to eat the chicken in front of me. I was refusing to change.
Maybe it’s an unforgiveness that we have no desire to work through. Maybe it’s a friendship that went south somewhere along the line, and it’s just more comfortable to keep things how they are. When we’re content with keeping things how they are, we have a hard time seeing and understanding what good change could possibly do. “There’s no hope for me in this area, it’s just how/who I am.” I remember thinking, often, over the past seven years “what’s the point of trying chicken again? If I eat it, I could even get sick.” It was something I had settled into and gotten comfortable with, even though it no longer made sense.
Somewhere along the road we got comfortable with where we are, and we chose to ignore what has become of our issues. We can blame our refusal to work through them on ignorance or naiveté. We can blame it on fear. But sometimes, it’s really just because we don’t feel like doing it. We simply do not want to eat the chicken because our life is fine the way it is, “so leave me alone about it.”
“Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence” (Psalm 91:3, NIV). The thing you’ve become okay with, He will deliver you from. A part of being delivered, however, is asking for help. How can you be delivered if no one knows you need delivering?
Sometimes our response is “it’s none of your business what I eat, or if I even eat it. It’s my decision.” Yeah, that’s actually really true. No one can, or even should, make you do something. BUT are we really opening ourselves up to the community and growth that we were designed for if we don’t allow that to be their business? “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17, NIV). If we close ourselves off, we refuse to be sharpened. Can we even call ourselves iron if we have no desire to look for ways to be sharpened or even allow ourselves to be sharpened?
About a year ago I cracked my knuckles and started reading the Old Testament. Something that has really stuck with me from the Mosaic books especially, is the Israelites’ doubts regarding deliverance. When they can’t see the good that will come from the changes the Lord has planned for them, they start to panic and want what they had, even if it means oppression. Stephen refers to this in Acts when he says “in their hearts (they) turned back to Egypt” (7:39, NIV).
Though they had been oppressed, there was stability, comfortability, and security in their oppression. They were used to it and there was a level of expectation of what life was like being enslaved. That sense of normalcy was uncomfortable and scary to leave behind. They let their fears stunt their growth, and turned back to the thing that was oppressing them.
By refusing to eat the chicken, we are the Israelites referred to in Acts. We are oppressing ourselves, making it so we cannot experience growth or deliverance in that area. It’s not even that we’re not allowing deliverance to happen, we are actually standing in its way. We are keeping deliverance from even having a fighting chance. We are encouraging oppression and bondage for ourselves.
Sometimes eating the chicken is hard. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it’s the furthest thing from what you want to do. But addressing our issues with chicken, with relationships gone south—with whatever it is we have gone so long without addressing—is a step toward walking in the full health the Lord has planned for us.
What’s your chicken?
**P.S. I did eat the chicken Effie made for us, and I really liked it. I’ve eaten chicken at least once a month since then.**
