the silly goose of Galilee

In the northern stretch of Israel, there lived a man.

Long before Jesus walked through Gaililee, calling Andrew, Peter, James and John… There lived a man named Asa. 

But no one called him Asa.

They called him “God’s Silly Goose.”

He tripped over his own sandals.

He made promises and forgot them.

He wept at sermons and sinned by sundown.

He loved easily, repented loudly, relapsed quietly.

But he was kind.

He gave bread to strangers.

He laughed with the children and enjoyed being with them more than adults. 

He meant well.

He just never meant it long enough.

The elders would shake their heads.

“The goose will learn someday.”

Each time he stumbled, he would run to the Temple.

He tore his garments with drama

Pressed his forehead to the stone.

Fastened his sackcloth loosely.

“Yahweh!” he would cry. “I’m sorry, forgive me!”

And he was. For a night. For two mornings.

Then old desires would whisper again.

And the goose would wander.

Then the drought came. The barley thinned. The vines cracked. The oil dried in the jars.

Asa’s small vineyard, the only thing he had ever stewarded with consistency, began to die.

He knelt in the dust one evening, turning soil that would not answer him.

And something inside him broke differently this time.

Not loudly or theatrically.

He did not run to the Temple.

He stayed in the field.

And wept.

Not because the crop was gone.

But because he saw the pattern.

He had lived like his vineyard: surface repentance, shallow roots, temporary bloom.

That night, as wind moved across the dry hills, Asa felt something he could not name.

Not thunder. Not terror.

Weight and presence.

He did not see a form.

And then came the voice. Not shouting. But unavoidable.

“Asa.”

He trembled.

“You come to Me often.”

His throat tightened.

“Yes.”

“You weep loudly.”

“Yes.”

“You promise passionately.”

“Yes.”

A pause.

“But you do not come with your whole heart.”

The words did not strike like stones.

The words settled deep within Asa’s heart. 

“Asa,” the voice continued,

“You tear your garments, but you do not tear the place where you hide.”

He felt heat rise in his chest.

“I don’t mean to wander,” he whispered.

“I know,” said the voice.

“You are not wicked.

You are divided.”

The word pierced.

Divided.

Half toward God.

Half toward comfort.

Half toward obedience.

Half toward indulgence.

“You return to Me when you are tired of sin,”

the voice said gently.

“But not when you are ready to leave it.”

Asa wept harder.

“What must I do?”

And then the words came — not as threat, but invitation.

“Come back to Me.

And really mean it.”

The wind stilled.

“Come fasting. Come weeping. Not to impress Me. Not to escape consequence.

But because you are finished loving what is killing you.”

His breath caught.

“I do not want your drama.

I want your whole heart.”

Silence.

Then softer: “Asa… I am not asking you to crawl. I am asking you to come home. To me.”

“Leave the life that drains you,” the voice said.

“Leave the patterns you excuse. 

Leave the little compromises you pet like harmless animals.”

Asa saw them.

The habits.

The indulgences.

The familiar comforts that always promised rest and delivered drought.

“You say you want abundance,”

the voice continued.

“Abundance within a divided vessel spills out. Apart from Me you can do nothing. A divided allegiance fractures the soul.”

His chest felt like it might split.

“I am not against you,” said the voice.

The tone changed. It was fierce now. But not angry.

“I am for you more than you are for yourself.

That is why I will not bless your backsliding. but I will pick you up.

That is why I prune your vineyard. but not destroy.

That is why I dry up what keeps you half alive. to show you where life actually flows.”

“I do not endorse sin. I restore the sinner.”

The words burned. But they were clean fire.

Purification.

“Asa, come to me. You are weary. This time… return with your whole heart,

I will not shame you.

I will restore you.

But the things you cling to cannot give you what I give.

They were never meant to.”

The night felt holy.

Asa did not run to the Temple the next morning.

He stayed in the field.

He fasted.

Not for display.

Not for attention.

He let hunger speak.

He let grief finish its sentence.

He confessed not just what he did — but why he kept choosing it.

He did not say, “I’m sorry I failed.” 

He said, “I am done loving what pulls me from You.”

And for the first time in his life, he did not feel dramatic. He felt surrendered.

The tide did not change immediately.

The vineyard did not revive overnight. But something deeper shifted.

His prayers stopped sounding like emergency alarms. He was having a conversation with Yahweh. 

Temptation still whispered. But it no longer ruled.

He was no longer divided. And when rain finally came months later, it felt less like reward

and more like a covenant. It felt like intimacy. 

The elders noticed something. The Silly Goose still laughed.

Still stumbled occasionally. But he did not wander.

And when asked what changed, he would smile softly and say,

“I stopped apologizing for my sins… and started leaving them.”

Yahweh smiled. For the Silly Goose was no longer waddling, but dwelling in the house of the Lord.

Where goodness and mercy followed Asa all the days of his life