Lesson from a Horseback Ride

Here is a note from Joey about one of his recent adventures and what God taught him through it.

A few weeks ago, I went on my very first horse ride. I’ve never really ridden a horse (only sat on one before with a kid leading the horse with a rope in front me) and so it was something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. Anyway, I get on my horse and he seems reluctant to catch up with my two friends. So, the owners of all the horses, walking along behind us, give me a length of rope and tell me to slap the flanks of Mizan with it. Mizan, happens to be the name of my horse and when asked what it means in Ar., they tell me it means “balance”.


So, I take the rope gladly and give it a try. Mizan actually gives a burst of speed and I am now only 561 steps behind my friends. Still, it was a burst in the right direction. Each time I flick the rope past Mizan’s field of view, he straightens up and walks more diligently. After a bit, I do indeed catch up with my friends and we all get into a rhythm and go together.

While languishing behind the others I was saying things like: “Ach, I wanted this first horse trip to be a good one. Here I am with a slow horse. You know what, I bet this horse is just going slow for me; I’ll bet he could really book if he wanted to.” While mumbling thusly between myself, Mizan and God, I had this wish pop into my thoughts: “I wish I could see what this horse was like if he was opened up at full clip.” Well, Mizan may not have been listening at that point, but God certainly was.

I prayed before we went riding that my first horse trip would be good and even that God would teach me a good lesson and that I would learn it. Well, on the way back from our 6 km ride, I wanted to see just how fast Mizan could go. I laid the rope to his flanks and then again the burst of speed. Not good enough I said, Faster! Yaa! Again, the rope. I stood up a bit on the stirrups and something, perhaps not having my weight on his spine, caused Mizan to do the most unusual thing: He bolted. Now, when I say he bolted, I mean he BOLTED. So, here it was, Mizan opened up to full clip. And there I was, caught up in a frenzied energy of trying not to fall down and break my crown.

I pulled back on the bridle (there was no bit between Mizan’s teeth came to find out) and what that did was straighten his head a little bit. Needless to say, my shouting at him in Ar. (Agif! Agif! –guess what that means you guys) and my tugging on his rope did nothing to stop him. He had unstoppable horse energy. Maybe he was saving it up after walking the whole way so slowly or maybe it was his sweet revenge for my use of the rope. But I think it was simply that God heard my unvoiced desire to experience something unstoppable. I was in fact thinking two things right then: 1) “I should probably start looking for a nice soft patch of scrubbly plants to fall into, should the need arise.” And 2) “Thank you God for this.” It should be noted, that never, even with the possibility of falling from Mizan’s back at his furious tilt, never was I in fear for my life.

You see, God was with me in the Unstoppable and He opened my eyes to His presence there. I know only one other time in my life when I experienced the Unstoppable like this: I was in the midst of a breaker at Ocean City. I remember I tumbled upside down in that wave. Well, I did not tumble upside down this time and I did not fall. That’s right, just when I was resigning my first trip on horseback to a first fall from horseback, Mizan just stopped. Nothing that I said or did made it happen. God must’ve had the ear of Mizan better than I did, because he just slowed down and didn’t seem the least bit tired by his run.

After a calming of the nerves and a rubbing of those sore places, there it came. Quietly, almost imperceptibly, but there it was: My lesson. I reflected back over the last few moments and thought, that’s how I want to live my life with God. Opened up at full clip, near powerless to do anything but hold on. Never the fear of dying and only the glory of what was happening. It was one of those rare times I was blessed to be a part of.

I pray you all may live your lives on horseback with God. Mizan will bear you if you do. Indeed, it will be the Balance between those slow humdrum times, you all the while knowing life has more to give than this, and those other times, those times of breakneck frenzy and the wild Unstoppable. Opened up at full clip- with never the fear of falling.