“For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it” (Matthew 16:25).

“Killing the Goose” The story of the goose that laid the golden egg might well be the best-known of Aesop’s Fables. In fact, it is so popular and commends itself to the mind with such reasonable wisdom that it has given rise to the idiom, “killing the goose that laid the golden egg.” Everyone seems to recognize immediately the imminently practical value of its moral. The tale relates how a farmer found that his goose laid a golden egg every day. He took these eggs to the market and was soon becoming rich by them. However, it was not long before he became impatient that the goose was laying only one egg a day. He felt that he was not getting rich fast enough. Indeed, this feeling grew to consume his mind. He soon became so greedy that he started to think of ways to make the goose lay eggs faster, but even when he fed the goose all of the finest grain it could eat, it only laid for him just one egg a day. In his frustration, the thought occurred to him that inside the goose lay all the eggs she had. If only he killed her and cut her open, he could have all her eggs at once and become an immensely wealthy man. This idea so seized him that he determined to carry it out. So, he took a knife and slit the goose’s throat and cut open her body. Yet, not even his most thorough search revealed a single golden egg, and now, even the goose was dead, never again to lay another golden egg. The moral is obvious and commends itself to common sense: greed and discontentment can so overwhelm the heart that they drive people to foolish acts which cause them, not only the loss of the wealth they already enjoy, but deprive them of any further hope of more. The lust for everything leaves them lacking everything. Lying at the center of this story is a principle often called “delayed gratification.” It counsels deferring immediate satisfaction of desires in order to enjoy a better satisfaction later. This idea also lies at the very heart of the gospel. Indeed, the story of the goose that laid the golden eggs illustrates it well. Worldly people have the sense that their lives are to be spent in getting the most out of them as fast as they can to satisfy their physical desires and pleasures. To them, this is the totality and meaning of life. This is its purpose. This is why they live. So, they use up their lives for the momentary pleasures they can get out of them, while they should be using them to create a greater, eternal treasure for themselves. It was said of Moses that he chose “to endure ill- treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin; considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward” (Heb. 11:24-26). People need to use the assets with which God created them to gain the salvation of their souls, which is the only asset ultimately worth having. Yet, the discontentment with what they have makes them greedy and impatient for immediate physical gratification. This, in turn, drives them to sacrifice what they do have in the futile quest for more. In the end, the ironic tragedy is that they could have had so much more forever had they just been content with what they had for a while. The fact that God has made humans in His image (Gen. 1:26,27) means they have souls which give them spiritual comprehension and a sense of their value. Therefore, they can know that something so much greater lies within their grasp, if they will use their God-given will and intelligence to forego the tawdry trinkets offered by the world to please themselves during their short time on earth and, instead, “take hold of that which is life indeed” (1 Tim. 6:19). Otherwise, those who use their earthly lives merely for the sensual joys they offer are merely “killing the goose” and losing all its golden eggs in the process. GOOSE AND GOLDEN EGG IMAGE BY PETER CORBETT - FLICKR PHOTOSTREAM