I remember the first time I ever heard the story that follows. I was driving in my car in the mountains of northeast Georgia. I remember being so moved to tears as Paul Harvey, in his most eloquent manner, told this story. In fact, the tears were running down my face so much that I had to find a place to pullover or run the risk of driving down the side of a mountain. Yet, even today, as I reprint this wonderful Christmas story, I am forever reminded of God's great love for you and me...and for the sacrifice that Jesus made to come to earth as a baby, die on a cross and then be raised to new life so that one day, ALL WHO BELIEVE IN THE MATCHLESS NAME OF JESUS AND THE WORK ACCOMPLISHED ON THAT CROSS WILL LIFE WITH HIM...FOREVER!!!!
So enjoy this story and the little poem that follows and when given the chance this holiday season, wish all you know a MERRY CHRISTMAS...FOR CHRIST IS THE REASON FOR THIS SEASON!!!!
This is a reprint of a former post.....
The Man and the Birds...A
Christmas Story
Each year at Christmas, I eagerly search across my radio dial trying to find the story of the Man and the Birds, as told my Paul Harvey. I find that in listening to that story, I am so wonderfully reminded of the love of God for each of us. On many occasions, I have been forced to pull off on the side of the road to listen to the conclusion of the story…it’s so hard to drive when your eyes are water-logged and leaking.
I hope and pray that during
this Christmas season, you will have the wonderful opportunity to hear Mr.
Harvey’s captivating telling of this timeless story…of Emmanuel, God with us.
If not, then please read on and be forever blessed to know that the love of God
was expressed…in human form…in a manager in
The Man and the Birds by Paul
Harvey:
The man to whom I'm going to introduce
you was not a scrooge; he was a kind decent, mostly good man. He was generous
to his family and always upright in his dealings with other men. But he just
didn't believe all that incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at
Christmas Time. It just didn't make sense and he was too honest to pretend
otherwise. He just couldn't swallow
the Jesus Story, about God coming to Earth as a man.
"I'm truly sorry to distress you," he told his wife, "but I'm not going with you to church
this Christmas Eve." He said he'd feel like a hypocrite. That he'd
much rather just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them. And so he
stayed and they went to the midnight service.
Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to
the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then went back
to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later he was
startled by a thudding sound...Then another, and then another. Sort of a thump or a thud...At first he
thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window. But
when he went to the front door to investigate, he found a flock of birds
huddled miserably in the snow. They'd been caught in the storm and, in a
desperate search for shelter, had tried to fly through his large landscape
window.
Well, he couldn't let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered
the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm
shelter, if he could direct the birds to it. Quickly he put on a coat,
galoshes, tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors
wide and turned on a light, but the birds did not come in. He figured food
would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs,
sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted wide open
doorway of the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs,
and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching
them...He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his
arms...Instead, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm,
lighted barn.
And then, he realized that they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am
a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let
them know that they can trust me...That I am not trying to hurt them, but to
help them… But how?....since any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse
them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they
feared him.
"If only I could be a bird," he thought to himself, "and mingle
with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid.
Then I could show them the way to the safe, warm barn. But I would have to be
one of them so they could see and hear and understand." At that moment the
church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the
wind. As he stood there listening to the bells ….listening to the bells pealing
forth the glad tidings of Christmas, he understood …. And he sank to his knees
in the snow.
I trust
that this Christmas, when you hear those church bells ring or the sounds of
carolers lifting their voices in praise to the newborn babe, you too, will
understand the message of Christmas….Jesus Christ is born and God is forever
with us!
Merry
Christmas….Happy Birthday, Jesus!
WPQ
Poem for the day...
On that starry Christmas
night
Many centuries ago....
The King of Heaven left His
throne
And came to earth below.
Not as a ruler or mighty
king
but as a simple child;
Born of God and woman
This babe so meek and mild.
And in lowly cattle stall
In a manger filled with hay
The God of all creation
In a feeding trough did lay.
For one day he'd lay down
His life
So our sin debt would be
forgiven.
This precious babe of
Christmas
Was the greatest gift that
was ever given!
WPQ
© Dec 2017
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