Monday, September 12, 2005 AD Had to Get Out of Bed to Post This
"P-please," said Hwin, very shyly, "I feel just like Bree that I can't go on. But when Horses have humans (with spurs and things) on their backs, aren't they often made to go on when they're feeling like this? and then they find they can. I m-mean -- oughtn't we to be able to do even more, now that we're free. It's all for Narnia."
"I think, Ma'am," said Bree very crushingly, "that I know a little more about campaigns and forced marches and what a horse can stand than you do."
To this Hwin made no answer, being, like most highly bred mares, a very nervous and gentle person who was easily put down. In reality she was quite right, and if Bree had had a Tarkaan on his back at that moment to make him go on, he would have found that he was good for several hours' hard going. But one of the worst results of being a slave and being forced to do things is that when there is no one to force you any more you find you have almost lost the power of forcing yourself.
It's the same with being a slave to sin. The temptation seems absolutely irresistable, and the call to do good seems entirely unmotivating.
At 38, having known Jesus my whole life, how is it that I am still so susceptible to the merest suggestion from a master who no longer has authority over me? How is it that I still cry out to God, as if I were still in shackles, to free me to obedience, as if He had not already done so? How am I still directed so inexorably by "spurs and things" that ought to have no power over me any longer?
