Let's be reasonable with one another, shall we?

Saturday, August 18, 2007

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.

17 Comments:

  • Does that moving graphic bother anyone?

    By Blogger Rose~, at 8/18/2007 9:18 AM  

  • Good morning, Rose! I enjoy your observations after a walk. I should start walking again.

    The graphic doesn't bother me, but when viewing through my Google reader, I was thrown out of Internet Explorer a couple of times. ??

    Have a wonderful weekend.

    By Blogger Missy, at 8/18/2007 10:48 AM  

  • Hey this reminded me of a corny joke our 6th grade teacher told us:

    "What side of the V-formation is always longer?"


    (The one that has more geese in it)


    In 6th grade - I think we saw genius in the craftiness of his humor....

    By Blogger Jon Lee, at 8/18/2007 11:25 AM  

  • Hey Rose- hows it going? Congrats on the birthday and so many comments on the previous post.



    Missy-

    The graphic doesn't bother me, but when viewing through my Google reader, I was thrown out of Internet Explorer a couple of times. ??

    You could search a database of known IE issues on Microsoft's site to try and diagnose and solve the problem, (although the list of known issues for IE is probably close to infinite) or, better yet: Try Firefox as your internet browser- it's not subject to the same amounts of problems and security issues as IE.

    Once you use it, you'll never want to go back. Promise.

    An even better fix would be to get a Mac and use Firefox on that, (cause I think I hate Safari even more than IE...) but I suppose I shouldn't do any proselytizing here... lol.

    By Blogger Deviant Monk, at 8/18/2007 2:25 PM  

  • Great post, Rose.

    I am too tired to write a long comment.

    By Blogger Matthew Celestine, at 8/19/2007 12:59 PM  

  • DM, thanks for the assist - for all I know the problem could have been unrelated to the graphic. Maybe I'll try Firefox, and I may even switch to Mac one day - but for now I have so much more time than money. {C;

    By Blogger Missy, at 8/19/2007 4:12 PM  

  • Does that moving graphic bother anyone?

    I am Sorry Rose did you say something else, in this post I got so distracted by the geese.

    By Blogger J. Wendell, at 8/19/2007 7:00 PM  

  • Missy,
    It helps wake me up and has opened up a part of my wardrobe that was slipping away from me. ;~)

    Jon,
    How profound! My son strarts sixth grade this week. Should be fun.

    Monk,
    Fine. Thanks for the visit. I was always a mac user and then I got a job where they use PC. Since then I switched and have been happy with PC - I don' think there is much difference, but I haven't used a mac for about 5 years now, so I am not sure.
    I am interested in Firefox, but apprehensive.

    DF,
    You had a long weekend? Get some rest, brother.

    John,
    Honk! honk!

    By Blogger Rose~, at 8/19/2007 9:39 PM  

  • Rose: must say those flapping birds distracted me till I pulled every thought into captivity as I read your fabulous post! Love your personal musings.

    Shouldn't we all be so diligent to the design we've been purposed for as the geese? V for Victory. And ours is in Jesus. selahV

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8/19/2007 11:52 PM  

  • Rose

    Monk,
    Fine. Thanks for the visit. I was always a mac user and then I got a job where they use PC. Since then I switched and have been happy with PC - I don' think there is much difference, but I haven't used a mac for about 5 years now, so I am not sure.
    I am interested in Firefox, but apprehensive.


    I am so sorry that you have have laboring under the cruel conditions of using a PC. It may be time for an intervention. ;-)

    Yeah, Macs have come a long way in the last five years- the ease of use and functionality and performance differences between OS X and XP (let's not even talk about Vista...) are astounding. It took me about 2 months to make a full conversion, but now that I have, trying to use a PC is frustrating. For me, having the Mac is crucial because I do a lot of video production, and although Adobe has some pretty good software for that, Final Cut Studio is pretty much amazing.

    Lay your apprehensions about Firefox aside. I think you will be pleased wit it, and will never want to use IE again.

    By Blogger Deviant Monk, at 8/20/2007 6:31 AM  

  • Very reasonable! I love it! And I love to make observations about nature and God when I am out exercising!

    take care

    Angela

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8/20/2007 6:52 PM  

  • Selah,
    Thank you for reading this!

    Angela,
    It is a great time to think, isn"t it? Thanks for the visit.

    By Blogger Rose~, at 8/21/2007 9:39 AM  

  • Lay your apprehensions about Firefox aside. I think you will be pleased wit it, and will never want to use IE again.

    It's not like people actually want to use it in the first place...more of an issue of being forced to by the computer one purchases coming with it pre-installed. If people do not know of a better way, how could they choose it? But now that the revelation has occurred, all are without excuse.

    Viva FireFox and a pox on IE!

    By Blogger Exist-Dissolve, at 8/21/2007 1:33 PM  

  • Exist,
    I will not try Firefox until you say hello to me.
    :~)

    By Blogger Rose~, at 8/23/2007 11:06 AM  

  • Rose--

    Hello, hello hello!!!

    Tell all your friends, family and co-workers to try it as well!

    By Blogger Exist-Dissolve, at 8/24/2007 9:36 PM  

  • I still may not try it....

    By Blogger Rose~, at 8/25/2007 9:18 AM  

  • hahaha

    By Blogger Rose~, at 8/25/2007 9:18 AM  

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