God and the Geese

There was once a man who didn't believe in God, and he didn't hesitate to
let others know how he felt about religion and religious holidays. His
wife, however, did believe, and she raised their children to also have
faith in God and Jesus, despite his disparaging comments.

One snowy Eve, his wife was taking their children to church in the farm
community in which they lived. They were to talk about Jesus' birth. She
asked him to come, but he refused.

"That story is nonsense!" he said. "Why would God lower Himself to come to
Earth as a man? That's ridiculous!"

So she and the children left, and he stayed home.

A while later, the winds grew stronger and the snow turned into a
blizzard. As the man looked out the window, all he saw was a blinding
snowstorm. He sat down to relax before the fire for the evening Then he
heard a loud thump. Something had hit the window. Then another thump.

He looked out, but couldn't see more than a few feet. When the snow let
up a little, he ventured outside to see what could have been beating on
his window. In the field near his house he saw a flock of wild geese.
Apparently they had been flying south for the winter when they got caught
in the snowstorm and couldn't go on. They were lost and stranded on his
farm, with no food or shelter. They just flapped their wings and flew
around the field in low circles, blindly and aimlessly. A couple of them
had flown into his window, it seemed.
The man felt sorry for the geese and wanted to help them. The barn would
be a great place for them to stay, he thought. It's warm and safe; surely
they could spend the night and wait out the storm. So he walked over to
the barn and opened the doors wide, then watched and waited, hoping they
would notice the open barn and go inside. But the geese just fluttered
around aimlessly and didn't seem to notice the barn or realize what it
could mean for them.

The man tried to get their attention, but that just seemed to scare them,
and they moved further away. He went into the house and came with some
bread, broke it up, and made a bread crumb trail leading to the barn. They
still didn't catch on. Now he was getting frustrated. He got behind them
and tried to shoo them toward the barn, but they only got more scared and
scattered in every direction except toward the barn. Nothing he did could
get them to go into the barn where they would be warm and safe.
"Why don't they follow me?!" he exclaimed. "Can't they see this is the
only place where they can survive the storm?"
He thought for a moment and realized that they just wouldn't follow a
human. "If only I were a goose, then I could save them," he said out
loud. Then he had an idea. He went into barn, got one of his own geese,
and carried it in his arms as he circled around behind the flock of wild
geese. He then released it. His goose flew through the flock and straight
into the barn -- and one-by-one, the other geese followed it to safety.
He stood silently for a moment as the words he had spoken a few minutes
earlier replayed in his mind: "If only I were a goose, then I could save
them!" Then he thought about what he had said to his wife earlier. " Why
would God want to be like us? That's ridiculous!"

Suddenly it all made sense. That is what God had done. We were like the
geese--blind, lost, perishing. God had His Son become like us so He could
show us the way and save us. As the winds and blinding snow died down, his
soul became quiet and pondered this wonderful thought.

Suddenly he understood why Christ had come. Years of doubt and disbelief
vanished with the passing storm.
He fell to his knees in the snow, and prayed his first prayer: "Thank You,
God, for coming in human form to get me out of the storm!"