Every Message believer cherishes the times when they hear Brother Branham speak about some of his personal experiences, such as the opossum that came to his front door to be prayed for, or the little bear that had broken into a bucket of molasses while he was on a fishing trip. Like a father telling a story to his children, he captures our attention through fascinating dramas that take us to the very scene where these things happened.
Here is one of our favorites from the Stories CD collection.
Remember one time my mother, they went west and she lived in Texas, Oklahoma. So my dad was fancy rider; he really could ride, and a very good shot with a revolver. And so he used to go to rodeos and things, and he would ride. And he used to try to teach me to shoot a revolver. He’d take those big clay marbles and roll one out like that, and had two revolvers; and he’d take one, shoot under the marble and knock it up in the air and burst it with the other one ’fore it hit the ground.” I couldn’t hit a lard can setting still, so I—I knowed I could never do that. But he could ride good.
And so I always wanted to be like my dad. So we as kiddies on a farm (You know?) and we had an old plow horse. And so of a evening after he’d get though plowing, I’d go down along behind the barn. They had an old watering trough hewed out of a log. How many ever seen a watering trough hewed out of a log? Say, now we’re coming home, getting right down towards home now.
And so I’d get all my little brothers and set them along out there on the side of the bank, and I’d get the old horse, where dad wouldn’t notice it. You see? And I’d go down there and pick me a big handful of cockleburs, and get the saddle, and throw the saddle on the old horse, and put these cockleburs up under there, and pull down the hinches (You know?), and climb up on him. Why, the poor old horse, so old (You know?), and stiff and tired, he couldn’t even get his feet off the ground. He just bawl with them cockleburs under there. You know? I’d set there and take off my hat and say, “I’m a cowboy.” Ride on this poor horse, and he’s just bawl (You know?), and just jump like that.
When I got to be about nineteen, I run away from home, going out west. I was going to be a cowboy. So I landed in Phoenix, Arizona, just in time of a rodeo. I went down to get me a pair of chaps, and when I buckled them on me, there was about eighteen inches of leather laying out on the floor. I looked like one of these little bantam roosters (You know?) with them feathers back… I said “Um-um, too long legged out here for me.”
So I got me a pair of Levis and went out to the stalls, and they let me in with a pair of Levis on. I… So I was watching around. So after a while they said this Kansas outlaw was going to be rode by a certain famous rider. I seen when they pull—got that horse in that chute, I knew that that wasn’t our old plow horse by a long ways. They got him up in the chute like this, and you have to catch-as-catch-can when he come through. They opened the bull chute there to let him out. And when he did, this famous rider jumped onto the horse, and as they jump—he jumped onto the horse, that horse made about one buck, put all four feet looked like in a wash pan, and he could’ve thrown the saddle over the corral fence. And when that guy fell, when that horse threw him, the blood was running from his nose and his ears. The pickups got the horse, and the ambulance got the rider. Well, this fellow come by, said, “I will give anybody a hundred dollars who will ride him a minute: one minute. Anybody.” And there was a whole big bunch of cowpokes setting along on the fence. You know? I was setting up there with them. You know? Boy, I thought I was a cowboy. And I seen that. He looked, come right up to me, the caller did, and said, “Are you a rider?”
I said, “No, sir.” No, sir. I wasn’t a rider then when I got around where there is a rider at.
51-1003 - "Believest Thou This?"