Honk!

Nature has an incredible way of teaching valuable lessons. Consider geese. Geese teach us about community, encouragement and survival. When geese fly in their V-formation, they’re not flying to be fancy but with intention to help others behind them. With each flap of their wing, there is an ‘uplift’ of wind created to ease the flight for those that follow. The V-formation increases the flow of air and their flying range. If a goose strays or slips out of formation, it will feel the drag and resistance of flying alone without the aid of the current and will resume its spot in the formation.

The lead goose is not always in point position. When it tires, it will move back, and another takes its place to give its leader a much deserved break from its demanding role. This rotation continues as needed.

Occasionally a goose will get sick, injured or is shot down. Two other geese will drop out of formation to help and protect the goose until it dies or is able to fly again. When all are ready, they will either form a flock of their own or join another until they reach theirs.

When geese honk, it’s their way of encouraging those in front to keep up their speed, to keep moving and to stay together.  

How is this applicable to us? 

Life is not always an easy journey. Sometimes we face challenges and obstacles that bind us and keep us from moving forward. It’s during those times when the support and encouragement of others fill in the gap, much like the flow of the air current helping us to rise above and get through so we can continue toward our destination.

When one person’s life is touched or influenced by another’s compassion, care, words of encouragement or positive active interaction, many others also receive the flow of blessings birthed through it. Every single act of love is like one flap of the wing.

Whether we are chosen to be at the point position or to follow, we all are part of the amazing bond found in unity. We all need each other! It is through humility, faith, trust and wisdom that we can know when to move forward and reach out to help others in need and when to step back to allow for others to help us. It is simply through our love for one another to choose to fall out of formation – to step aside from our own agendas – so we can tend to the immediate needs of another until that sister or brother is back on their feet.

Ultimately, we all are heading in the same direction - our future. We can either choose to fight against the current and go it alone or we can strive to reach our destination together, helping one another along the way. Indeed, life may not always be an easy journey, yet life is not always difficult either. Life is full of God’s blessings all around us, all the time. What amazing beauty there is, even in simple things. Imagine being part of that V-formation and experiencing the grandeur of God’s creation from a new perspective – the perspective of what it means to spread your wings in preparation to journey forward together in praise of an awesome God. Takes your breath away. No one should journey alone. No one. Honk!

 “Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” (Philippians 2:1-4)

Blessings upon you dear one and glory to God!

Bonny.