“Give it to ‘im, Dad! Give it to ‘im!” Dan was jumping around his dad and shouting like a cheerleader, for Harry was getting a licking!
Yessir! It was really Harry this time for once! Dan could hardly remember when Harry had ever gotten a licking, for he was really a good boy. But as for himself—well! that was another matter! How many times had his dad said to him, “I should have named you Jacob, Dan! You’re a crooked stick like Jacob was if there ever was one!”
But Harry was getting it now, and Dan wanted to see him get it right for once, too.
Just then Dad straightened up, reached for Dan, and the next thing Dan knew he was “getting it,” too, for rejoicing in Harry’s whipping!
Quite a few folks agreed with Dad that Dan was a “crooked stick.” There was the time of the family reunion. All the aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins, had met on their farm. At noon they all ate in the grove close to the house, and Dan thought that this would be a good time for a little excitement.
Up under the eaves on the nearby corner of the house the hornets had a nest. It only took a few good-sized stones and a good aim—and the fun began! Dan watched and laughed from a safe distance away. Everyone was getting stung! The hornets were good and mad.
Dad was suspicious, and soon found out what had angered the hornets. Then Dan found out that his dad didn’t agree with his ideas of entertainment.
Dan loved to pester his sisters, and even teased his mother, and many whippings were the result of this. One day he decided no one loved or cared for him or he wouldn’t be whipped so often. All right! He would show them. He would just hang himself, and then they would be sorry!
He found a good strong rope and walked boldly with it past the kitchen window where he knew the family could see him. Out to the barn he went. Then he sat down and waited. He hadn’t really meant to hang himself, he just wanted to make the family think so to frighten them.
The minutes ticked slowly away, but no one came to see if he were dead yet. Finally two hours had passed by and no one had come near the barn—perhaps no one had even noticed him with the rope, but Dan did not think of that. It just seemed to prove that he was a crooked stick, and no one cared what happened to him!
But a loving Heavenly Father was watching Dan day by day. He knew Dan’s crooked, naughty ways, and He loved Dan. Little by little He began to show Dan his own heart. When the Bible was read at the table, God would speak to his heart. In Sunday school and at meetings God’s Spirit quietly began to teach him that he needed to be born again.
Dan grew anxious to know how his heart could be made clean, his sins forgiven. He began to really want to straighten his ways and to do what was right. But though he tried hard and even prayed about it, it did not seem to make him a better boy. It seemed to be hopeless. He would just have to always be a “crooked stick.”
It seemed as though a dark window had been opened, and the sunlight came streaming through! The Lord Jesus, the Just One, who had never sinned had suffered for Dan’s sins that He might bring him to God. He was crooked and unjust. But the perfect One—the Just One—had traded places with him and taken the punishment for his sins!
At that moment the “crooked stick” became straight in God’s sight! No one calls Dan a “crooked stick” today. He has been made a new creature in Christ Jesus and seeks to please Him in all that he does as he spends his life witnessing for the Lord Jesus!