“On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: six geese a-laying, five golden rings, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtledoves, and a partridge in a pear tree.” (“The Twelve Days Of Christmas”). In Aesop's fable, “The Goose That Laid The Golden Egg”, a farmer and his wife discover that one of their geese is laying solid gold eggs. Not content with this daily bounty of gold, they decide to kill the goose and get out all of the gold inside it all at once. But when they cut open the goose, they discover it is the same as any ordinary goose, and their greed and impatience has caused them to lose out on what could have been a lifetime of good fortune. Each of us is given daily the gifts of time, the agency to choose for ourselves, and the enabling power of Christ's Atonement. These three gifts together represent a brand new golden opportunity that is laid before us each and every day. However, some of us may not be content with a single egg’s worth of our Savior's grace. We may feel a pressing anxiety that a single egg sized nugget of gold is going to keep our creditors at bay, or that such a fortune will prove sufficient to face the evils that lie in wait for us in the days to come. Even though we have been sustained through every day of our lives so far, not always in the best of circumstances, and with plenty of very, very close calls, and often with a lot more pain and misery than we feel we really deserved, yet still we convince ourselves that the power that has kept us alive through all of our worst moments will not be enough to sustain us through the challenges that lie ahead. We become greedy and impatient and demand not just enough gold to get us through today but more than enough gold right now to hoard and lay up in store for all of the days to come. We are like the Prodigal Son and wish to declare our living father legally dead so that we may claim all of our inheritance right now. If our Father's plan is not working out for us just as we had envisioned, if our Savior's grace is not removing the obstacles and trials in our way as quickly or as effectively as we hoped, if our lives are not as we feel they ought to be, let us not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Let us not deny the faith and reject our Savior's mercy and kick against the pricks and curse God because we have allowed ourselves to become discontent with our daily golden egg. It is frustrating to get to the end of each day having used up all of our golden egg with nothing left over, having to rely on faith that there will be a golden egg big enough tomorrow to cover all of the costs we will have that day. But it will be much harder if we cut ourselves off from the daily blessing of that golden egg. Life is often very difficult even with the Savior's help but we have all learned through sad experience that it is much, much harder still without His grace to lighten the load. I hope that we will learn to cherish the goose that lays the golden egg and that we will be filled with humility as we gratefully accept the daily offering of a golden egg and do everything in our power to ensure that it is sufficient to face the evils of each day as they come.
