Finding The Spirit of God in Unexpected Places

What a little Canada Goose named Nod taught me about free will and my relationship with God.

As a child and into my adulthood, I struggled with the concept of free will, why God gave it to us and why it is so important.  

Couldn’t He just make us choose the “right” choice.  Wouldn’t life just be easier if everyone did the things that would bring humanity to a better and higher place?

For example:  why do I choose to skip my workout or choose a bowl of ice cream after a dinner that has filled my belly to over-full?  I do it because I have free will; but is it a choice in my best interest? Clearly not.  So why doesn’t God just make me desire the things that are better for me so I do not have to have free will?  He can just make me choose what is best for me.

There are more serious examples of free will negatively impacting us in a more devastating way through bullying, domestic violence, murder and more.  In these instances, free will doesn’t seem like a good thing, does it?  This was my struggle.  I struggled with making choices that were best for my health as an adult and as a child I struggled in a house filled with domestic violence, literally fleeing that house at the age of 17.

Nod was delivered to our house one spring afternoon by a wildlife rehabilitation expert.  Nod was a week old Canada gosling who had been rescued by a little boy when he found it wandering alone.  The rehabilitationist had been told about our farm, that we kept domestic geese and that we currently had goslings on our farm.  She felt that raising this Canada gosling with other goslings was the best chance for it to return to the wild.  

We agreed to take it.

While Nod was kept with our domestic geese that were being handled, we kept our interaction with Nod as limited as we could; after all, the goal was to have the gosling grow into a vibrant Canada goose and fly away.

It was hard not to fall in love with Nod over the weeks and months that we cared for her.  She was funny, energetic and stubborn.  We kept the goslings locked into a pen when they were very young, but after just a few weeks, they were roaming the yard and farm all day and then locked up at night to keep them safe from predators.  Once they were fully feathered and Nod was able to fly, we no longer locked them up at night.  The goal had always been that Nod could leave whenever she was ready and keeping her restrained would limit that possibility.  

Nod practiced flying more and more every day and was gone for longer periods.  She always found her way back home and spent most of her time with her domesticated sisters.

One evening, When Nod was about a year old, she took her flight and did not return home.  That was the goal!  As happy as I was that we had achieved it, I could not help but also feel sad.  A life in the wild was what was best for her.  Freedom to fly anywhere she wanted, see much of the world where she could meet a flock to join and find her mate for life.  It sounded amazing.  It also sounded scary.  She would be prone to predators, to hunters, to injury and death.  On the farm she would have safety from much of that.

But Nod had chosen to live free and I would never want to take that from her.  My sadness in her leaving was grieving for the loss I would experience from her not being in it, and of course my worrying for her safety.  Each day after she left, I would go look to see if she had come back for a visit, but there was no sign of her - she was gone.

Four days later, Nod came hobbling up our driveway.  She was injured and managed to somehow find her way back to our farm.  Her wings were hurt and she was not able to fly.  We nursed her back to health and once again waited for her to leave.  It was many weeks before she once again took flight and by now we were deep into her second winter.  Nod stayed with us through winter that year and we expected that once spring returned she would again leave in search for her mate.  Instead, Nod chose a barrel next to our door to lay her first clutch of eggs.  I am sad to report that her eggs were sterile and never hatched.

Nod never left the farm again.  She would take short flights daily, get all the geese fired up and noisy everytime she did, but she always came back and spent her time with our flock - a flock she called family and stayed with because she chose it.

I loved Nod and I was so happy that she chose to stay.  I can’t tell you how wonderful it feels to have a wild animal choose to call you family; there are simply no words.

What was important was that Nod had the freedom to leave whenever she wanted - she had her “free will” to leave.  But she chose us.  This is very different from leaving Nod locked in a pen and forcing her to stay.  If we had chosen that course; to force her to stay with us, we would have provided for all of her needs and on that level I suppose she might be happy. But there would always be sadness for her, as well as for ourselves because we would be holding her back from the life that she would choose for herself.

If God were to make the world perfect and control our every move - if He removed free will, our love for Him would mean less for us and for HIm.  It is through our trials and tribulations that we grow and it is there in that journey that we find faith and understand the depth of His love for us.  What He wants for us is to CHOOSE the right path for ourselves.  To make that choice because we love Him and want to do what He wants for us.  

Like Nod, it was the choice to stay with us that made her staying such a blessing.  And so for God, it is the choice we make to stay with Him that creates the blessing that provides unending love and a peace that can not be otherwise known.  The Choice is everything.  I know how amazing it felt to realize that Nod chose us for her family, I can only imagine how amazing it is for God when we choose HIm for our family,

If you would like to read more about Nod - there are two other posts in this blog about her.