Thursday, June 12th, 2025
Today, I am continuing on with a few more spiritually significant things from the PBS Nature Show, Equus The Story of the Horse. There are three separate statements Jimmy Anderson made that I see as layers of a sandwich that we are going to neatly stack together into something deeply satisfying. The first statement was, “Horses are always looking for safety.” This is a simple phrase, but aren’t we humans always looking for the same thing? If we could truly know how much God loves us, how much He provides for us and the plans that He has for us we would never look for a safety substitute.
The next statement I want to talk about was when we kept nudging the horse with a rope and rustling up against him with a tarp. He said he was, “getting him used to external pressure.” Isn’t that so like our God? God has never promised that life would be easy. In fact He allows challenges in our life to try us and see which way we turn. External pressure either pushes us towards God or away from Him. God doesn’t want to give us false expectations. He wants us to know exactly what we are up against, and trust Him anyways.
Now the last layer of my sandwich. When he was talking about why he is so successful with breaking horses, he said, “It’s more of a partnership and a relationship that we can start to get working together.” Again, I see this as exactly what God says to us. He isn’t looking for robots. He wants sons and daughters to radiate His glory in their own unique way. He wants to walk step by step with us just like He did with Adam in the Garden of Eden. He will never force us to do anything. He wants us to follow Him because we love Him and we trust His care of our lives. He doesn’t just want to be our Sunday-God. He wants to be the God of every decision we make, every thought we allow past our gate and every word we sow into the earth.
Final Thoughts…
Horses and humans both want safety. They want to know that when a situation takes a turn for the worse, they can still trust their Owner. They don’t want someone standing over them demanding perfection and punishing mistakes. They want an Owner patient enough to teach them the way to go, brush them off when they fall and love them through it all. God wants to be that for all of us. What would life be like if we could fully settle into the shadow of His wings and fear nothing but Him? Sandwich fully assembled. Enjoy!