White Horse

Yesterday my three-year old came running over to us informing us that there was a horsie in our yard.  It is a white horsie – and I needed to go get it.  What?!?!?  There is a horse in our yard?  Well unfortunately, this isn’t the first time this has happened.  Living next to a family that has horses, they sometimes get out.  But they didn’t have a white horse.  So I was confused.

I went outside to go and look and didn’t see anything, but it isn’t something that my three-year-old would just make up and be so incredibly determined that it happened.  So I went back outside and looked and I still saw nothing. 

Living in the middle of a cornfield, it is hard to see anything when the corn is up all around.  The corn grows at least 6 foot tall and is planted very densely so there might have been a horse that ran into the fields, but we couldn’t see it. 

Next thing that I know I heard our neighbors on their four-wheeler in our yard (it was acceptable this time as they were looking for their horse) going slowly.  I don’t know if they caught their horse or not, but I do know they will miss it greatly if it ran away.  Horses are not cheap and when you invest  your time and effort, energy and money into one, you don’t want to loose it.  You don’t want to say – hey there was $500 I wont see again.  The horse may have been super close but just out of sight and reach.

You know – we can spend allot of time investing in someone to come to Christ or come to our church.  Then something happens that spooks that person and they run off into the field around us.  We could have done a big event, really put time into working and fellowshipping with them, and then something happens.  It could be something small that scares them into the next field or it could be something that really spooks them and they could run away for good. 

We have to be careful what actions we do that will scare people off.  We have to ensure that their relationship with Christ takes priority over our fun and our pleasure.  I can’t tell you how many friends I have that say, I used to go to church, but it is all full of hypocrites or something about Christians all being fake.  We need to watch what we do so that we don’t spook people away. 

If we don’t actively purse them after they run away, what happens to them?  If we just say – oh well, I lost another one, what does that say about us?  We will be horseless and broke very shortly. 

Acts 14:21 & 22 says: “They preached the good news in that city and won a large number of disciples.  Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. ‘ We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,‘ they said.” 

They strengthened the people that they won for Christ.  They didn’t win them then leave them.  They didn’t win them for Christ and then say – okay –here is the Bible, you are on your own.  They didn’t get them to their church and say – okay, good luck, lets get on with our inside bickering…  They actively sought and developed new disciples. 

I know that I have dropped the ball on this BIG time, that I have not been good at following up with people or discipinging them.  That is something that I am going to try to change. 

The horse might have been right in the field next to us, just waiting to come out – seeing what they were doing and deciding if it wanted to be part of that life.  We need to be sure that we are ensuring that our lives are up to par so that our “horses” can decide if they do or do not want to be part of this.  And hopefully, they see that we are happy, that we take care of our “horses” that we love them, brush them, feed them, run them and love them.  That they too can be happy as part of our family.  Hopefully they will come back to us.