Someone knocking? Oh, I wish they would go on and let us rest. We have lost enough already!” So spoke a wife one night to her husband.
They had just been awakened by someone at the door. They lived at a distance from any neighbors and, times being hard, had had many a tramp at their door. Some had taken advantage of their trustfulness and had stolen from their few possessions, so that now there was little left but the tools of his trade. But they were the Lord’s children, and it hurt them to turn away any needy person.
The husband went to the door and unlocked it and brought in the stranger. He was not a very pleasant looking one either, but one that they might well be suspicious of. Still he was allowed to stay and was given such comfort for the night as they could offer.
Said the wife: “Have you really let him stay?”
“Yes, he seemed to need it, and I told him he might,” her husband answered.
“What does he look like?”
“Rather a rough one; that is a fact.”
“Well, we shall probably be robbed of what we have left. Why did you do it? You know how much we have lost.”
“Yes, and I would not have done it, but for the security he gave.”
“What was that?”
“I told him that we had already been robbed of nearly everything, and would rather not have him come in, and asked him what assurance I could have that he would not rob us, and he answered that he gave the Lord as security. I felt that we could take that, and for the Lord’s sake give anyone shelter.”
But, in the morning, they found that their visitor had left them and had taken even their tools with him! Knowing that if he used the name of the Lord he would be likely to be taken as a Christian, the thief had deceived them and taken what he could.
“There!” said the wife. “I was afraid of that and told you we ought not to trust anybody anymore. What can we do?”
“Well,” answered the husband, “he gave the Lord as security, and I will trust the Lord for it.”
And the Lord met this trust. The day was extremely foggy, and the fog was so thick that the tramp with his stolen tools wandered round and round the home of these poor people, thinking that he was going straight on his way. As night came on he saw a lighted window and trudged wearily toward it. Knocking at the very door he had left in the morning, he asked if he could come in.
“Yes—and put down the tools!” shouted his victim, recognizing the voice.
Dropping the tools, the tramp raced away into the darkness and they saw no more of him. Although he had no trust in the Lord when he used His name as security, the Lord Himself took up the case. We cannot trust Him in vain! God has given His Son that we may have One to trust in.
“It is better
to trust in the Lord
than to put
confidence in man.”