"The fact is, if I had just
accepted a dead, drowned
chicken, that's exactly what we would have had." Jackie
Calhoun
What was really behind
the resuscitation of Boo Boo the chicken?
The same thing that was behind the resuscitaton of Aunt Lydia.
Read all about it here.
Warning:
The following article contains explicit expressions of good news that
could be extremely beneficial for your health and spiritual well-being.
From talk show radio program hosts
to people talking to me in person, many people have asked me why I took
a dead drowned chicken and went about resuscitating it. Some have
assumed that this was a very expensive exotic chicken. Some think we
are animal rights activists and we will do anything to save an animal.
I think most just shake their head and wonder what motivated me to do a
thing like this. Let me share with you what went through my mind that
day.
First Some Background
You need to realize that I am a preacher of the
gospel (the good news) of Jesus Christ. We do short-term mission work
when we are financially able. We take the name of Jesus with us
everywhere we go, and, we have seen the power of God demonstrated in
people's lives in marvelous ways through faith in that name. We are not
ashamed of the name of Jesus.
Jesus said to go preach the good news that people's
sins have been taken away by His sacrifice on the cross, that people's
sicknesses have been conquered by the beating that He took in His body,
that He has broken the power of Satan, and that He has arisen
victorious over death itself. As we believe the Word of God and act on
it, we are able to appropriate into our lives that which He has already
accomplished. That's why it is called good news. It's like having money
in the bank and when you write a check on it, you receive the benefits
that money can bring you.
The Bible tells us that death is an enemy. It robs
us of health and life. Jesus told us to go heal the sick and raise the
dead. We are to do this in cooperation with and under the leadership of
the Holy Spirit. Thing about it is, a lot of times the leadership of
the Holy Spirit is so natural and so spontaneous, working through our
natural responses, that we do not even know we are being led by the
Spirit. Sometimes we just find ourselves doing things that spring up
out of our inner man before we have time to analyze them.
For many years I have been trained in my personal
walk with the Lord in this line of thinking.
Now, the Incident of Boo Boo
We got the chicks for the grandkids to enjoy
watching them grow up. Becky and I also enjoy watching the chickens.
They are really very interesting to watch. Everytime we go to the
bathroom, we can look out the window and catch the attention of just
about
every fowl eyeball in the back yard.
It just so happened that very morning I was looking
out the window admiring all the diversity of the chickens and watching
their activities for a few moments, and I took note of Boo Boo, of how
she was strikingly marked, and how that all her movements, true to her
name, were so jerky, that it looks like she is constantly being
spooked. I thought it was kinda cute. It's just a pleasure to watch
them all. They are all different and "fun" in each their own way.
Around noon, when I walked into the back yard and
found Boo Boo floating lifeless in the pond, my first emotion was
resentment. I realize that death is an enemy and a thief, and I
resented that death was attempting to steal something from us that we
enjoy. Just as sure as I know that death is an enemy, I also know that
Jesus has conquered death in every realm for all things and for all
time. So, my natural response was to speak the Word of life into this
situation.
If an armed thief is in your house stealing your
goods, and
threatening your family, and you know how to use the twelve
guage shot gun that you are holding in your hands, you don't just stand
idly by and let him do his thing. You exercise your authority in word
and in action if necessary.
Right before I spoke over that chicken, " In the
name of Jesus, you will live and not die," a doubt flitted through my
mind. It went something like this: "You're gonna feel stupid when it
doesn't work." I ignored that thought and spoke boldly that the chicken
would live and not die (based on Psalms 118.17). And after I took it
around to where Becky was,
I continued to speak the positive Word of God over the chicken. I also
prayed in the Spirit. I felt silly and stupid doing it, but I also
ignored those feelings and kept right on doing it. After I had done all
I knew to do, I told Becky that she had better be speaking the Word
over that chicken if it was gonna live. I left it laying there wrapped
in a towel. I think it had life in it, but that was all.
Approximately 30 minutes later, Sis came along and
found herself responding by giving it "mouth-to-beak." She left. About
an hour later I came back to the house and again, ignoring my feelings
of being silly, I gave it about 15 minutes of mouth-to-beak. I thought,
"I spoke over this chicken in the name of
Jesus that it would live and not die; I need to do all I can to make
that good." That's why I did the mouth-to-beak for 15 minutes. Then I
had to leave and go back to
work.
The chicken was still alive that evening. We dried
it off real good with a hair dryer and placed it in ICU (a cardboard
box with a towel in
the bottom of it) with a heater nearby. Next morning, it was still
alive, so I put it in the sunlight on the front porch. There it was,
laying in ICU, it's feet curled up and it's wings splayed out. Becky
was sitting beside it silently reading her Bible, which when getting to
that part about Lazarus being raised from the dead, the chicken lets
out a squawk and jumps up on the edge of the box and perches there. The
rest is history.
Oh yes, one more thing. Even after we put it out in
the chicken yard in it's private pen, I watched it wobble around and
fall down as it attempted to move around with it's feet still curled up
some. The thought came to me, "It looks like we're gonna have a
crippled chicken on our hands. It would have been better to just let
her be drowned." I refused to accept the thought, and in the face of
that thought I think I even spoke out loud, "This chicken will recover
and be normal." I thought this on the basis of the
good news of Jesus Christ.
The fact is, if I had just accepted a dead, drowned
chicken, that's exactly what we would have had. In fact, I do remember
the thought flashing through my mind when I first saw her floating, I
thought something about how messy it is to clean a chicken in order to
have chicken for supper, then I thought, "No, that wouldn't be right to
eat a pet; what would the grandkids think. We would need to have a
decent burial." I dismissed those thoughts, giving place to the
spontaneous response to speak life into the chicken. It all happened in
a split
second.
I know everybody believes death is an enemy, because
unless a person has been brain-washed into some religious suicide
mind-warp, a person's natural response to a threat on their life is to
do something to protect themself. They believe death is an enemy.
The belief that death is an enemy is what keeps
doctors and veterinarians in business.
If we can believe that death is an enemy, we can
also believe that Jesus has conquered death, and that if through His
name we will act boldly
on His Word in persistent faith, we can see life triumph over
death. We might need to
work together with natural measures and medical means, but if we
persist in that faith, we can see victory.
Jesus summed it up in these words, "If you can
believe, all things are possible to him who believes...with men it is
impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible"
(Mk.9.23; 10.27).
Now, I'm just telling you my personal thoughts and
motives in
this incident. It's just like when Becky's Aunt Lydia collapsed in my
arms. She fell to the floor, her breathing stopped, she lost her bowel
contents. No movement. Eyes fixed. I had fallen to the floor with her,
unable
to support the sudden dead weight. She was laying on my legs, a dead
weight. My response then was the same as with the chicken on the basis
of the same good news of Jesus that I believe. I literally shouted a
rebuke to death and a command to live in the name of Jesus. My wife was
calling
911 . By the time the ambulance got to the house, Aunt Lydia got up out
of the floor and onto the stretcher with just some hand held
assistance.
There might have been some medical explanation about
what happened there. All I know was that there is help in the name of
Jesus. I was relying on Him, and she came through it. I never did learn
what what was wrong with her.
Since this incident with Boo Boo, I have heard that
there are firemen who have resuscitated animals. Perhaps there are many
cases of animals being resuscitated, and there are many cases of people
being resuscitated by CPR. That's good. I'm all for life and life more
abundant, whoever does it and however they do it.
In it all, I just know one thing: Jesus is the
Way--Never give up.
That's why I spoke and that's why I did what I could
do to
resuscitate the chicken.
The natural and supernatural
coming together makes an explosive force for God. Now that is something you can live
by!
(There is more about this life on our ministry web site.)
No Limits In Christ.
Jackie and Becky Calhoun
and Boo Boo
March 25, 2006