Horse Story

This amazing piece was sent in by one of my readers. 

"I had this experience yesterday and your rat blog inspired me to write it down. 

While I have worked with or around various animals, the horse has always seemed uniquely special.  Yesterday, as I was getting ready to ride, I paused as I stood next to one whose back I couldn’t even see over.  I stopped, lay my hand on his smooth side, and breathed in the stillness.  Peace washed over me as a spring rain clears away fall’s dead leaves.  I gently pushed on him and he respectfully stepped away from me.  He towers over me, could kill me if he wanted to, and yet was a mountain that moved quietly away from me.  His eye turned to mine with the long lashes slowly blinking and with just a look, asked what else I wanted.  Remembering time, I resumed grooming him, saddled, and rode away from the barn. 

We’ve been together six months now.  When we first started, there were lots of disagreements about which direction to go, how fast to go, when to go home, and his back must have been sore as I was returning to riding and had lost all my muscle tone from years previous.  But today we were a new creature together.  I sat atop and yet flowed with his every movement and motion.  We had no arguments and enjoyed the journey together.  Somewhere around the curve of the river, I realized through layers of cloth and leather that I was feeling his every muscle contract and expand and could tell exactly what his footfalls were.  No sight, simply feeling, and yet more than feeling because I could tell what the next move would be and we made it together.  I was thunderstruck with the spirituality of the moment: to be two and yet work as one to the joy of each.

In that heartbeat, I knew that’s how it can be with God.  He in us and we in Him.  The horse and I place trust in each other, get out on the trail, and through time and trials, connect with each other.  An experience is born that neither of us could have without the other.  I place my trust in God and in turn He entrusts Himself in me.  He is glorified and I receive a fullness I never could have otherwise.  The longer the horse and I work together, the more responsive to each other we become.  He obeys my direction on the faintest of cues and I no longer jar against his movement.  How the horse and I combined reflect what the Father wants to do with me!  To get on His narrow path no matter how hot or exhausting the day, to yield to His directions, to no longer chaff against the propelling forward is to arrive at destinations I never would have otherwise and see the wonders of His nature I never would have otherwise.

When horse and man unite it is an experience that can only be understood by those who have likewise done so.  When God and man unite it is also only an experience that can be understood only by those who have done so.  But the sacred scrolls are full of the histories of those who gone before us and they are waving us forward, even warning us to get up and go.  May I read the warnings are change course and may I hear the encouragements and charge forward."