The Old Man’s Luck

Therefore don't worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. - Matthew 6:34 HCSB

There once was an old man who lived in a small village. He was very poor and had one son that he loved very much. All they owned (besides the house they lived in) was a horse. It wasn’t much of a horse, but it was theirs and it helped them by carrying the firewood they would gather and sell.

One day there was a great storm and in its panic over the lightning, the horse kicked down part of the fence and ran away. The next day the villagers gathered around the old man and said, “What terrible luck you have! You only had the one horse and it ran away. What a tragedy!”

The old man merely shook his head and replied, “Don’t say it is bad luck. We don’t know what it is. Say only that I had a horse and now it is gone.” The villagers all walked away shaking their heads at his foolishness.

However, a few days later, the horse returned accompanied by a herd of wild horses. Now the villagers were amazed and said to the old man, “You were right! You’re luck is incredible! Now you have all these horses and are a wealthy man. What good fortune!”

The old man argued with them saying, “You cannot say whether or not this is good fortune. Say only that I had a horse, it left and then came back with more.”

A week later while his son was breaking one of the horses in, the boy fell off and broke his leg. Now the villagers, commiserating with the old man, said once again how bad his luck was. “You son was young, strong and able to take care of you. What will you do now without him?”

The old man kept insisting that they stop saying that, “Say only that my son has broken his leg and nothing more. Who knows what God is doing? Who are we to say?”

A few days later the king (who was at war with another king) sent emissaries to draft young men into his army. The old man’s son, whose leg was broken, was exempted from the draft and thus left with his father. Now the villagers all cried and bemoaned the loss of their sons and told the old man, “How right you were and how wrong we were! Now all our sons are gone to fight in this war and will probably die! At least you still have the company of your son in your old age!”

The old man now grew angry with them. “Will you never learn? Why do you insist on saying ‘This is good fortune, that is bad fortune’ when you do not know what God is doing? State merely the facts and wait to see what God will do!”