A Horse on a Course
If you’ve ever gone horseback riding on a trail ride, you might say things like it was fun, relaxing, or you felt good knowing how to ride a horse. Only thing is, you road a horse on a course.
That horse was trained to follow the other horses and stay in line. They know the trail and that they are supposed to stay on it. They know how fast they’re supposed to go and they have these muzzles over their mouths to keep them from getting distracted and going off course to grab a snack from the trees along the way.
But if you take that same horse off the trail into an open field, muzzle off, without the horses and leader, it would be a completely different horseback riding experience.
That’s a lot like work. Sometimes we have a leader to follow, we love to be right there with coworkers, we take it at an easy pace, we follow the standard operating procedures laid out in front of us, and we even sometimes have tools to keep us from getting distracted and stay focused.
Then when you leave the comfort of a familiar work place and pace, or have a new leader, or you just feel like you’re left out in an open area with no direction and we really have to now take control. What are we going to do?
That’s what I was reminded of when I went off the trail at Gunstock Ranch and took my horse into the arena for the first time. Suddenly, the horse was relying on me to let him know where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. And if I didn’t do anything or wasn’t strong enough with my direction, he would wander off on his own to the area where he liked to rest or would go snack on the trees.
I knew the basics of how to pull on the reigns to choose the direction you wanted him to go because horses move away from pressure. If your upper body pulled right to have him go right, left to go left, back to go back and a couple kicks and kisses to go forward. But, when he didn’t always do what I wanted and I got confused.
Thankfully, the wrangler coaching me also got confused that he wasn’t listening so stood back and watched and realized that my upper body was doing the right thing, but my lower body wasn’t. I was tense and so I was squeezing my legs around the horse, which was applying pressure and confusing him. I was giving the poor guy two different commands and getting frustrated with him when it wasn’t his fault that I was telling him two different things with my body.
It was such an eye opening experience to realize that I could do that and that there was so much more to horseback riding, even just walking slowly, but without a trail, leader horse or others, or a muzzle and suddenly, the horse relied on me for more direction.
Perhaps you are trying to lead a “horse” or you feel like that horse now out in the open. When some people are telling you one thing and others are telling you another, and you don’t know what to do, don’t be afraid that you’re a horse no longer on a course. Maybe you’ve just changed paths and it could be even better if you follow God’s clear directions.
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight" -Proverbs 3:5-6
