The Rented Mule

Rented Mule

What God Had Promised:

"God has not promised/Skies always blue, Flower-strewn pathways/All our lives thro’;
God has not promised/Sun without rain, Joy without sorrow,
Peace without pain.

God has not promised/We shall not know/Toil and temptation,/Trouble and woe; He has not told us/We shall not bear/Many a burden,/Many a care.

But God has promised/Strength for the day, Rest for the laborer, Light for the way, Grace for the trials, Help from above, Unfailing sympathy, Undying love."

-Annie Johnson Flint

This writer was raised on the farm when there was little mechanization. The farmers farm size was known for the number of mules it took to keep the land under cultivation. The few old tractors (before the time of tires for farm equipment) tractor wheels with spikes. Often in season, grass growing, many hired "hands" needed for plowing, extra mules would be rented. The farmer did not treat the rented mules as well as he did his own mules on which he must depend, year round. On my father's farm, it would have been hard to distinguish sons from the hired field hands. My father's sons were expected to be the pace setters but the sons always knew who they were and thrived in the knowledge that every promise given to them by who they are..it was their father's house, their father's land. The hired hands like the rented mules, were just there on a temporary basis.

Why, in this life, would anyone chose to live as a hireling instead of their father's son? Even the world's first civilization, before the great flood, the door to Noah's arc of salvation was left open for several days but there is no record that anyone entered that door to be saved along with Noah and his family and the animals which God had loaded into the arc. There is no record, although he walked and talked with God that the disciple Judas was ever saved. The plan so simple, logos, the word, God, spoke and the world was formed. "Faith comes from hearing and hearing from the Word of God" (Romans 10:17). "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). Man is a spiritual being with human needs, not a human being with spiritual needs. It is through the supernatural sovereignty of God that the righteousness of Christ possess us through the Word. We become indwelled as a temple of God, his church. The building on the corner is just that, a building, where churches/temples meet. Many things can be best done for God as an individual. "One man plus God and most things are possible" but often, God's work is a group activity. A group of people committed-devoted, spirit filled, chosen-elected-separated, many do not understand the importance of separation. The hireling from the saved.( John 10:13). The hireling-rented mule does not know the awesome blessedness of being separated-chosen. "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean [thing]; and I will receive you" (2 Cor 6:19). Separation, is a large part of the New Testament church. "As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Paul for the work whereunto I have called them" (Acts 13:2). Both believers and non believers recognize separation.

It took me a long time to realize that a little faith is better than no faith. Even Jesus said, "For he that is not against us is on our part. For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward" (Mark 4:40-41).

The apostle Paul did not fall in love with prisons, beatings, shipwrecks. It took me a long time to realize the real significance of his words. "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus (Gal 6:17). Paul, like every Christian, knew that God had vengeance for those responsible for the marks. Like treatment of a rented mule, ill treatment of any animal, ill treatment of any child or adult, God knows the record.