Tuesday, June 24th, 2025
Today will be the last of my lessons from the PBS Nature Show, Equus Story of the Horse with Jimmy Anderson. There are three more phrases he said that show just another aspect of how breaking a horse in the natural is a picture of our human will being broken in the spiritual.
The first phrase he said was, “When I take the halter off, what I want to see is him not leaving me.” If Jimmy took the halter off the horse and he ran for the woods, that would be a problem. When life is going well in our world it’s easy to go along for the ride. But where do we turn when the storms start to rise? When our situations suddenly take a turn outside of the box we try to keep them in, where do we run to find peace, comfort and wisdom?
The next phrase Jimmy said was, “Every time he stops I want him to start to look for me – looking to me for that answer.” There are a few directions we could go with this one. The first question is, how often do we stop? Do we stop before we make decisions to pray and ask God for His wisdom? Do we stop one day of the week to observe the fourth commandment Sabbath Day? Do we stop each day to spend time reading the word of God, praying and listening for His voice? When we do actually stop, what are we looking towards to fill us? Is it our favorite TV shows, our favorite hobbies, our friends, something else? These are certainly not bad things, but what would our life look like if every time we stopped we said, “Okay, God what do you want me to do in these 5 minutes, 5 hours or 5 days? Would He have us doing something different?
The last phrase I want to talk about was when he said, “I want to be hooked up to these not through a rope or through manhandling or forcing, [but] through their mind.” In our spiritual walks our minds are such important tools. They can either be renewed and ready to battle with the Sword of Truth or they can be double-minded and easily turned by life’s imperfections and disappointments. God doesn’t want to pull us around by a rope or bully us into submission. He wants us to know Him so intimately that we are willing to follow Him wherever because we trust His character, His design of us and the plans He has for us.
Final Thoughts…
God is so effortlessly and abundantly creative. All across these innumerable things He created in six days are incredible reflections of what our walk with Him could and should look like. Nothing is here by accident. You are not here by accident. God initiated this incredible masterpiece that continues to produce unique and even more remarkable masterpieces. Let Him love you. Let Him show you His faithfulness. Let Him take you by the hand and show you the incredible part you play in His creation. He will never hurt you. He will never leave you. Keep your eyes fixed on Him and you will have all you need!