The rain pelted the steel top of my horse trailer as I popped open the door and urged my tall, lanky, Thoroughbred, Jack out of the back. It was late September and a blustery front had brought a crisp, cool chill upon us. I shivered as I zipped my jacket and lifted its hood, reaching for the lead rope hanging from Jack’s chin.
It was his first time at a horse show and Jack pranced alongside me as we made our way down the long gravel road between the barns and a cluster of arenas where riders were warming up their mounts. His head was high, his ears pricked forward, and his eyes were wide with anticipation. Every muscle in his body was tense.
Because he was a Thoroughbred, Jack was genetically predisposed to be on edge. Like all racehorses, he had been bred with an intentional tilt towards taking flight at a moment’s notice. But now he was retired and learning to live a new life away from the hustle of the backside. Which was an adjustment that wasn’t coming easily to him.
“It’s OK buddy. There is nothing scary here” I had said, reaching up to rub his face. My eyes following his frantic gaze as it darted around the venue.
Just then, a plump man with a thick white beard and a cowboy hat climbed down from the announcer’s booth and took a look at Jack who was standing before me with his head still raised.
“Just off the track?” He asked, sizing Jack up quickly and repositioning the wad of chewing tobacco wedged beside his lower lip.
“Yes sir.” I had replied with a nod.
The man walked up to Jack and gently reached for his halter with a knowing look in his eyes. He stared up at him for a moment and then glanced at me.
“He just hasn’t figured out that he doesn’t have to run anymore”, he concluded squarely. “That’s all anyone ever wanted from him for so long.” With that, he reached for Jack’s neck with a soft sort of affection that seemed to understand Jack’s plight all too well, and then he gave him firm pat before heading off.
In the years that followed, a lot of love went into showing Jack that he didn’t have to charge forward as if his life depended on it anymore. He had to work past his own genetics and all of his previous life experience before he could come to a place where he could live as if there was no longer a whip or a spur in his side setting his pace. So many days were spent soothing his nerves before he would begin to release the tension that gripped his frame. Often, I would just sing to him, his head eventually lowering a bit with each verse. Other times I just left him alone to spend long days in a pasture with no agenda besides eating grass.
In time, all of that reprogramming combined to yield a different kind of horse, one who knew he no longer had to run anymore. And the most interesting part of it all was that eventually, he went back to doing it anyways. Because he wanted to. And because he loved to. And because it’s the most natural thing for an animal like him to do. And it was so much more beautiful than it ever had been before because it was coming from a place other than striving, obligation, or fear.
Later in his life I would step outside and find him racing around in circles, just for fun. His thin black tail swishing playfully at his side as he called out with a loud whiny to no one in particular. And the best days were the ones when I saddled him up and we would head out together, the soft though strong rhythm of his pace was unlike any horse I had known.
I first wrote this story about six years ago, shortly after Jack died in the flood. It still stings to retell it today. But I still go back to it often because it has been so essential to my spiritual formation and the reprogramming that God has been doing in me as I aim to follow Jesus deeper into the Kingdom.
Like Jack we have been rescued from a way of being that requires us to charge ahead as if our lives depended on it. Part of the work Christ does in us is just showing us and reminding us of this reality, over and over, again and again. So that in time we begin to believe it, and then learn to live from a place where the worlds’ whips and spurs are no longer at our sides driving us forward with unceasing demands for more. And for me this is something that I have to return to daily because like Jack, I am preconditioned to be propelled by a sense of fear, obligation, or striving.
When we slow down, stop, and really listen we can hear God singing over us with a message of comfort that insists that we don’t have to run anymore. Regardless of whatever the world says to us about where our worth comes from or of what we need to do in order to survive. Because we are in new hands now. And those hands are the hands of Love.
And its from that place, that center of settling into the comfort of God’s love, that we learn to use our natural gifts and skills towards outward displays that are beautiful rather than forced.
"Most people fail in the art of living not because they are inherently bad or so without will that they cannot lead a better life. They fail because they do not wake up and see when they stand at a fork in the road and have to decide." The Heart of Man, Erich Fromm
Thanks for this beautiful story!