LORD'S day afternoon Steve and Teddie were down by the barn, when they heard a clop, clop, clop on the road. They peered around the corner, and to their surprise they saw a strange horse all alone, trotting toward the crossroads. There it paused, as if reading the sign posts and wondering which turn to take.
The boys slipped under the fence and headed her off to one side, and then chased her into the corral. She was hungry and thirsty, but almost too nervous to eat, even though the boys tried hard to get her interested. It wasn't till the next day that Teddie tried to get on her. What a skittish creature! She gave him a wild ride that he would not soon forget. He was glad to get off again.
After a week or so of waiting for someone to claim her, or run an ad in the paper, Daddy sent for the brand inspector to come to try to identify her brand mark. It turned out to have two marks — one on top of the other. This horse had some kind of a shady background. At any rate the owner was notified and drove out one day to get his horse.
He was rather disgruntled. "She's a runaway; nothing but a runaway. I can't keep her fenced up, and neither could the man I got her from. Would you just keep her here till spring and I'll pay you board for keeping her?"
Daddy rubbed his chin, "Well we're short on feed this year, and I have all these cattle to winter, I'd rather you just took her back with you."
But the man prevailed upon Daddy to try and keep her, and left with the parting warning that she'd probably make a break in a fence and get away again anyway. Silver, our horse, and Pet were soon on good terms. Silver was such a pet and loved to be fed special bits from the children's hands. Pet, however, refused to let anyone get very close, and always shied away when Daddy tried to catch her to put a bridle on her.
It was Beth, who took a special fancy to this shy, high-strung creature. She frequently slipped unobserved down to the corral, and would sit on the top bar of the rail enclosure and talk gently to the horse. Pet would snort and run to a far corner with a frightened bloodshot look in her eyes. If Beth would approach a few slow steps, she would quiver all over. Even a pan full of oats was no bait for friendship as long as anyone was watching. So she would set it down and withdraw. But after a few weeks of these daily visits, Beth felt rewarded when she saw Pet take a few hesitant steps toward the pan and start nibbling, so long as she sat patiently on her perch atop the rails.
What kind of master are you serving? Maybe you do not realize that you are serving any kind of master, but you are. "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness." Romans 6:1616Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? (Romans 6:16). If we think that we do as we please, we deceive ourselves, for we are gradually being brought into the bondage — hard bondage of sin and Satan. His victims do not realize they are in his toils until they struggle to free themselves and discover they are enslaved. The beginning is small and gradual; pleasures. small liberties, habits that grow, tempting advantages, and sin that lures unsuspecting souls on, and hardens the conscience. And when all is over and the end is come, Satan will leave you as he did Judas, with a "see thou to that."
Messages of the Love of God 2/16/1958