I opened the barn door for the morning feeding of our animals and stared. The interior looked like a tornado had struck. Objects were overturned, and hay was strewn wildly about.
The mystery was quickly solved when Yankee came trotting out of the hay stall. He had somehow opened his stall door and had been having a good time. The feed room was securely closed and that was the important thing. Wet lip marks showed that he had tried to get in. It would have been an almost certain disaster if he had.
We have to keep the door carefully latched on the feed room. If one of the horses got to an unlimited amount of grain, he could eat himself to death. Too much grain can swell up inside the horse, block up the intestines (sometimes they can rupture), and cause unbearable pain. Even if the horse survives, it often has terrible side effects, such as loss of its hooves.
At first thought, it seems strange that a creature would deliberately do something so destructive to himself. Then we realize the horse is merely following an urge that is pleasant to him and he greedily overdoes it.
The characteristic brings us to think about the self-destructive things that we humans do, and we are ones with the higher reasoning power. The horse has no warning of the harm that can come to him when he follows his lustful instincts. We can’t claim that ignorance. We are clearly told, “Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:15). Yet how often do we try to push through the door to ingest some of the world’s excesses? “We will be careful –just a little can’t hurt,” we say, even though we have been told that therein lies death.
And while the doomed horse munches his way to destruction, his barn mates watch with envy, full of resentment that they can’t do the same, bringing to mind the words, “let not your heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the LORD all the day long” (Prov. 23:17).
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One