Will Geese Be Judged By God?

As I was on my morning walk today, I saw some geese (there are a lot of geese that hang around my neighborhood). They were flying overhead in that V-formation and making a lot of noise. I watched for a moment as the sun shone on this spectacle. I said under my breath, “How awesome!”

The animals do things by “instinct.” These geese, for example, they fly in this formation. Did they sit down and plan what would be the best way to fly? Of course not. They don’t know why they do it – they have no idea of the brilliance of it aerodynamically … they just do it. This is God at work in creation. He has designed the animals to do these kinds of things. They do them.

Why isn’t man like that? In one sense I suppose we are. We all sleep. We all eat. There are certain things that we do and there is no way we can not do them. If we are underwater, we will struggle to the top to get breath. God designed us to eat and breath and sleep … and we do these. Try as we might to rebel, we can’t put off these basic needs. But, there are certain things that we don’t do that God has designed us to do – like how children are to obey their parents, but often don’t. Or … how people are supposed to have basic respect for other people and don’t. Or .. like how some mothers even kill their children. Read Romans chapter 1. You get the idea – we are not doing what we were designed to do. We are not this well-oiled machine. Mankind is not ‘flying right,’ so to speak.

Why is this? The only answer I can come up with also has to do with how we are designed. Our Creator made us with the ability to reason and decide. With this capacity, Eve chose to disobey God, throwing us all into this state in which our own wills continue to go against God’s perfect design – man having fellowship with God by means of willing hearts. But we can’t blame our sins on Adam and Eve. The ability we each have to choose is why we are going to be held accountable for our own actions. (But praise God for the mercy that is in Christ!)

I do not see that animals will be judged. They are not free moral agents as man is. Is this not what it means when the Bible says we are made in the image and likeness of God? While this is a higher plane of existence than animals experience ... to whom much is given, much will be required. It is hard for us to do as we were designed to do now that we have a fallen nature, but in Christ, we receive a new nature that can walk as God designed. Geese fly in a V-formation because they do what they were designed to do. It is an awesome display and a reminder of the Lord’s hand on creation (Colossians 1:17.) Man, who has the ability to operate on a different level than simple ‘instinct’, when he walks in the new nature with God, in restored fellowship, can be an even more glorious sight.