Unshackled Echo ~ March 16, 2019 ~ There's No Such Thing As A Free Horse

When I was a boy I wanted a motorcycle and a horse. I think my mother pretty much vetoed any thoughts about motorcycles and wasn't too thrilled with the first bike I brought home to use for my college commute. Despite the heartbreaking horse scene in Gone With The Wind, she didn't appear to have an issue with horses. My father loves horses. So, I always held out hope. The thing that always came up whenever I asked for a horse was the simple fact that as much as they would like to get me one, we couldn't afford one.

One summer when my father and I were hauling hay, one of the farmers offered me a horse, for free! I got so excited until I saw my father's face. He didn't look happy. The farmer didn't seem to see anything amiss as Dad said, "We'll see," but I knew the subtleties of his face. Something was wrong. He looked sad.

When we got back in the truck and headed for the field to load up again, I asked him what was wrong and why we weren't going to accept the horse from the farmer. His answer, once again was that we couldn't afford it. "But he's free!," I cried.

"Son," Dad said. "There's no such thing as a free horse. You have to have a place to keep it, and you have to pay to feed it. A place big enough for good grazing is too expensive to rent or buy, and if you kept him in the back yard you'd need hundreds of dollars to keep him in grain."

I found out later that the farmer actually never rode and was tired a paying to feed a field decoration. He had tried to get us to take that cost from him by pointing out the beauty of the horse without saying anything about how much he ate. But my father understood the hidden costs. A few years later I finally got my first horse, Dillo, and now my wife and father have horses thanks to free grazing space graciously provided by a friend.

While that farmer wasn't being mean or bad and wasn't really much like the devil, our tempter is often a lot like that farmer. He's an awesome salesmen, and he understands our weaknesses and desires. He has no problem giving away what will eventually be a weight we can not bear with a cost we can not pay. He knows how to make sin look harmless and fun while hiding the costs from view or distracting us from counting them even when they are known. We get sucked in by the image of riding through a field, hell bent for leather, laughing with glee at the pounding of the hooves. We fail to see or even look at the costs that dream will incur.

There's no such thing as a free horse. There's also no such thing as a free or harmless sin. The cost of sin is death. Every time we put our will over God's we allow a little death in our life, death in our relationships, death in our soul and mind. Sin brings two types of death. There is an eternal cost, when all is tallied and the full bill comes due, and there is the immediate mortal cost, the destruction, bondage and loss caused by our choices, the distance created between us and God and the confusion, chaos, fear and anger it sows in the field of our life.

Jesus, fully aware of that cost and not owing any debt, went to the cross and paid the eternal bill for all who will accept his offer. And now the Holy Spirit works in the lives of believers who will listen much like my father did in my life. When we look to Him before we jump at what the world and the tempter offer, we can hear him say, "This isn't the good deal you think it is. There is no such thing as a free sin. Besides, what you're really after is available from the Father because you're His child. This is a cheap counterfeit with a masterpiece price."

Today's Unshackled Echo was previously published on

February 19, 2016.

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