I fell off my horse today…again.
Or to be more precise…she asked me to get off. Politely.
If you’ve ever started a green horse, you know that eventually, you’re going to come to a place of disagreement. A place where you may think you’ve made some progress, or at least reached a level of equanimity, only to find out the hard way that your equine friend disagrees.
As my trainer friend would say, horses are really good at showing you the “holes in your program”. What she means is that on any given day, your horse may not agree with your definition of progress. In this case, a 12-year-old mustang mare with a mind of her own, will tell you that the only way she knows how. By spinning you to the right, stopping real quick, and then making sure you get the point with a buck. Or several.
But if you’ve ever worked a horse, you know the absolutely worst thing you can do is let that be the end of the discussion. As long as she’s not hurt or injured (and your ribs are intact), you’ve got to get your breath. Figure out what happened. And then?
Get Back On
I don’t know about you, but 2020 kicked me around some. And this new year, is off to an interesting start to say the least. Although individually, some of us may have experienced tremendous blessings in 2020, corporately, it was a tough year. I hope that you were spared the loss of someone close to you. If not, then I pray God’s peace will find you.
But I also hope that the last year taught you some things. And even more importantly, I hope that you learned them. Because this is the year to get up and get back on.
Scripture tells us that the Lord’s mercies are “new every morning”. In plain speech, it means we get another chance to get it right. To practice patience. To share our faith. To give when we would rather not. To seek God’s face. To be empathetic. To be a “living epistle read of all men”.
So tomorrow, I’ll be back out in the barn…starting over, looking for holes in my program.
I hope that this year, you’ll do the same.
