If you raise chickens, you will know that they only last a few years until their number is up and you have to replace them to keep their numbers up. So I recently purchased 11 new chicks.

Each day I let them out of the coup and hand feed them. There’s something wonderful about hand-feeding chickens at this age (not mine — theirs).

Recently, while feeding them my wife and I saw something neither of us had ever seen. They were walking around our lawn doing strange things that chickens do, lying down in sunshine, raring up at each other, running quickly for no apparent reason when one of them made a weird noise, and nine of them suddenly rushed in unison back into the safety of the coup.

The two that stayed outside stood like statues for more than 60 seconds, not moving even a feather. It was as though they were frozen stiff.

We guessed that the spokes-chicken yelled “Wolf!” or “Hawk!” or “Snake!” or “KFC!” or something about an incoming predator. Whatever the case, it was fascinating to see their natural instinct to survive kick in.

The incident made me think about human beings and how chickens have more sense than some of them. Christians warn about our ultimate incoming predator — death, and what they can do to avoid being devoured by it. And some ignore the warning. They carry on like a thoughtless chicken that has no concern for its survival. For details on how to avoid death, see www.needGod.com.