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, like
Christmas. His wife, however, did believe, and she raised their children to also
have faith in God and Jesus, despite his disparaging comments. One snowy
Christmas Eve, his wife was taking their children to a Christmas Eve
service in the farm community in which they lived. 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 breadcrumbs 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.
That was the meaning of
Christmas, he realized.
As the winds and
blinding snow died down, his soul became quiet and pondered this wonderful
thought. Suddenly he understood what Christmas was all about, why Christ had
come. Years of doubt and disbelief vanished like 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!"
Author Unknown
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