A Little Crow
If you sit down to dinner with us, my husband's seat at the head of the table looks straight out a
double window over our lawn at a group of apple trees he planted some years ago. We've never
really harvested much from them...most years the knotty little apples that are produced aren't
much worth the trouble. But like all things hobby, hope springs eternal. Someday, those trees
will produce a bounty, a harvest that we'll convert into the Forest Gump selection of apple
products: apple slices, applesauce, apple butter, apple pie, apple preserves, apple jelly, apple
dumplings... well, you get the drift. Forest Gump and Lieutenant Dan have got nothing on us!
There are several reasons we are NOT getting that apple bounty now... a full-time career which
involves travel prohibits my husband's ability to prune, spray and care for the trees like he'd
like. We don't thin out the blossoms to increase yield of larger, better apples, and then, there are
the crows. Murders of crows. Cawing to each other, alighting in the trees and carrying off
apples they've pecked into only to drop them in the grass on their flight out of the field.
My husband has a hate relationship with the crows. Those brilliantly menacing foul fowls are
regular visitors to our neck of the woods. They scavenge our garden (when we plant one...we
haven't done that this year), and his blackberry briars, and his blueberry bushes, and his apple
trees. We have a building to store outdoor equipment and such, and he swears that a crow was
standing on top of the building, holding an apple in its beak, who then proceeded to mock him
by dropping said apple from its proverbial cakehole and letting it roll down the expanse of the
roof of the building to the ground. Take that, you crow-hater!
If you are at the dinner table with us, and he sees the crows fluttering down on the trees or the
landscape, he immediately rises from the dinner table, runs outside, clapping his hands,
stomping his feet, and demanding they get off his property. He's like the proverbial deranged
crusty old man who runs children off his grass, except his shaking fist and fierce scowl are
reserved for the birds. He hasn't resorted to cursing, yet, but his military command voice scares
them up and away until they see him come back inside and they alight again.
I've been reminding him of an old wives' tale that says if you will kill a crow and nail it's dead
carcass to your outbuilding for the birds to behold, it'll scare off the others. But killers, we ain't.
If he had time to sit on the porch with a rifle, he'd probably have time to prune the trees. So
murdering the murder of crows is not on the table. On to plan B.
A friend of mine shared on Facebook how she'd solved her crow problem. Like the old wives'
tale, a dead crow was the answer, but she got hers on the internet... not a real one, but a fake
one, and sure enough, you can get a life-like couple of dead black birds and string them up...
which we DID. We stuck stakes in the ground, used the wires implanted underneath the bird,
and hung them upside down, feet pointed upward in a death pose. The only thing missing was
X's where their eyes were. Creepy, and were I a crow, I think I'd avoid the place like the
plague! And would you believe, we've not seen a crow land on apples, blackberries, blueberries
or roofs or strolling in the grass in the last three days.
It seems we found a way to motivate the crows to behave differently, for now.
Human behavior, however, is not so easy to manage or motivate!
Wouldn't it be awesome if we could just nail something up on the wall that would get rid of all
the things that are impeding our progress, hindering our harvest, wounding our wins?
Like, what would be the equivalent of a dead crow hanging in my office, over my computer, on
my refrigerator or pantry that would scare away the self-sabotage, the avoidance, or the pleasure
over profit syndrome? What would motivate me and you to put in our best efforts even when
we don't feel like it, or when there is an obstacle, a habit, a hangup that isn't going away easily?
For some people, positivity is the answer. Positive affirmations, visualization of your process,
creating a vision board of your wins and what they will mean for your life. One past mentor
urged, "Plaster those goals and those positive affirmations everywhere so you can see them and
be moved by them!" I did as instructed, and I benefited from the positive messages, but the
messages became part of the landscape, and lost their effectiveness before long.
Others of us are motivated by consequences. I think I fall into this category. I love winning; I
really do. And I really really hate losing... just ask my kids why they don't play card games
with me anymore. I will work harder, much harder, to NOT lose than I will work to win. Case
in point... my walking. I am not naturally motivated to exercise. Visions of a svelte body and
healthy numbers in my bloodwork do not inspire me to rise and shine and get my workout on. A
friend introduced me to an app called Stepbet... you basically lay money on the odds that you
will get your steps in each day, and if you don't, you forfeit the cash you paid. Yikes! I will not
walk to get my blood pressure down, but I will definitely walk to NOT lose my forty dollars.
Bonus win... if I DO follow through and get my steps in for six weeks, I not only get my money
back, but I get a piece of the money left over from others who didn't finish. Win/Win. Stepbet
is my dead crow for exercise.
When I read scripture, I find that God worked both ways in His covenant relationship with His
people. He offered the positive motivation: keep my commands, and all will go well with you!
He also offered the consequences scenario... If you don't keep my commands, bad things can
happen.
It feels like an uphill battle doesn't it? Based on the lessons of scripture, sticking to the path is
not how we humans are wired. How do we stay motivated to do what we need and want to do?
Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans, "Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.
For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war
against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work in me. What a
wretched man I am!" (verses 21-23 of Romans 7)
Paul, just like us, had crows in his yard that needed to be shooed away. He needed a way to
both win and not lose. He reveals the solution in verses 24-25:
"Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God who delivers me
through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Ultimately, the consequences for not keeping God's laws were poured out on Jesus who rescues
us from that inclination toward the law of sin. By Christ's power we can overcome. Listen to
how Paul frames this idea in Colossians 3 (I'm reading from the Message version):
1-2 So if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the
things over which Christ presides. Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the
things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ-that's
where the action is. See things from his perspective.
3-4 Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life-even though invisible to
spectators-is with Christ in God. He is your life. When Christ (your real life, remember)
shows up again on this earth, you'll show up, too-the real you, the glorious you. Meanwhile,
be content with obscurity, like Christ.
5-8 And that means killing off everything connected with that way of death: sexual promiscuity,
impurity, lust, doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and grabbing whatever
attracts your fancy. That's a life shaped by things and feelings instead of by God ...You're done
with that old life."
I have my post-it notes of encouragement and motivation: some positive, like "Psalm 18:29-
"With Your help I can run through a barricade; with my God I can scale a wall." Some
negative, like "Proverbs 23:2- "and put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony."
And like the fake dead crows having amid the apple trees, they shoo away the behaviors I'm
trying to overcome. But like the dead crows, after they've blended into the landscape, they are
no longer effective. Time to bring out something fresh to remind me how to win/win.
Zig Zigler said, "People often say motivation doesn't last. Neither does bathing-that's why we
recommend it daily." I have to daily hang up the dead crows-the old way of living and
doing-and put on the new life I have in Jesus.
What motivates you? Is the winning or the not losing? Either way, look to the One who enables
us to overcome. "In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us."
And when the crows return, you'll be ready for them!
