Out Our Way:

Mark 10: 28-31

Out our way, it sometimes happens that a calf will lose it's mother and be adopted by another cow. Though the mom and her natural calf may be black angus and the adopted calf a red angus, both calves are brothers.

You see that same bonding with horses - even when not raised together, sometimes they are still family. I recall Charlie and I checking cows and I was riding one oh his horses instead of Goliath. Now goof-ball was called Freckles and his buddy was Jet. When Charley went over the ridge on Jet to check a section and I continued along the road at he bottom, Freckles got upset and started acting up. I had to work a bit to settle him down. A few minutes later, Charlie and Jet came back up over the ridge and Freckles ears went up, his head went up and he practically started dancing. Though Jet was a quarterhorse and Freckles an Appoloosa, they were brothers under the skin.

Jesus spoke about such bonding when it comes the Kingdom. Those who follow Him and seek to love the Gospel gain far more than they could ever lose for making that choice - and they also become family. Family to Him and family to each other.

A missionary in Saskatchewan named Egerton Young wrote about a conversation he had with some Native friends he had made. The had asked him about the Gospel and he began to explain it to them as best he could. That there was but one God was not a new concept to them - but the use of the term "Father" interested them. One of the elders asked: " You call God your father?" "Yes," said Reverend Young, "for He is my Father - and yours as well." The elder thought on that for a few moments and then his face brightened and he said, "Then that means we are brothers!"

Wouldn't be wonderful if we all caught onto that fact as quickly as that elder? Some people "get it" the moment they hear the Gospel. Others take longer and some never do. We are all family in the Kingdom of God - and as Christ is not only King but our brother - that makes us all royalty as well!

We come in a variety of colors, shapes and sizes. We may have differeing types of hair and the shape of our eyes may also differ - but underneath it all we are pretty much the same. And like that elder in Canada, we hopefully grasp and celebrate that because we all have the same Father in Heaven - we are all brothers and sisters under the skin.

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John Bruington and Goliath serve in the Presbyterian Church of Havre, Montana, but also with all churches in the Kingdom of God