Today was a frustrating day.  Thanks to weather, work, and locking my keys in the car Monday I haven’t been able to ride in nearly a week.  That means my young horse has had nearly a week to lose all work ethic he may have previously gained.  My trainer has been working with us on warming up with a lovely trot on a loose rein where my horse stretches down and relaxes.  It is tough to convince an x-racehorse to relax.  Plus, she swears I lean forward too much when I ride so I have been working on sitting back.  The problem is that I have been riding incorrectly for so long, that it’s the only way I know how to ride!  When I sit back, I lose all control of my body and end up flopping around on my horse as if I’m a beginner.  Add to all of this, one corner of the ring is in the process of being fixed up and currently has a deep sand that acts like quicksand.

The ride began and Silas immediately dropped his head and stretched at the trot – while trucking around the ring at approximately 90 miles an hour.  We went around and around and around.  I attempted to follow my trainer’s advice – advice I have also given when teaching kids to ride – slow your post down!  The idea is that when I slow my body down the horse will slow himself down to match it.  However, as I sat back and flopped like a sack of potatoes on my poor horse’s back, my attempt at slowing my post down only seemed to spur him forward.  We were going so fast and I was so frustrated that everything just became a blur.  Silas was also determined that he wanted to trot in the quicksand so each time around I would start tugging at the reins and saying profanities as he pulled me towards our possible doom.  Why was he so darn determined to go fast and go in the quicksand?

After about 45 minutes in a moment of sheer frustration, I decided to actually look where I was going.  Literally.  What a novel idea!  I would pick a spot on the fence and ride to it.  As we got close to the spot I would turn my head and aim towards the next spot.  Miraculously we stopped veering into the quicksand.  Hm…maybe I have something going here.  While I was on a roll I decided to just tip my body forward a tad so I could control the pace of my post.  Eventually Silas began to slow down to a moderate pace.  I’m not proud that I had to do the complete opposite of what my trainer requested, but at least we finished on a good note.

This hour long ride was a perfect model for how we often deal with problems in life.  In the moment, we get frustrated and develop blurry vision to what’s going on around us.  Proactive goes out the door, and suddenly we are just along for a bumpy, uncomfortable ride.  Instead of looking ahead, we look at the quicksand we want to avoid.  It’s amazing that when we focus on the quicksand, it so easily sucks us in.  However, when we change that focus, and keep our eyes on what is ahead the quicksand that was once a source of fear and frustration becomes merely a part of the landscape.  It only took the vision of one fence post at a time to smooth things out – to take me from a miserable, frustrating ride to one Silas and I could both be content with.  Where are you on the ride of life?…bumping along with blurred vision or focused on what is ahead?  Another interesting point – all of our problems at first seemed like Silas’s fault.  HE was going to fast and HE was dragging us to the quicksand.  Funny how once I had a clear vision, and shared it with him clearly our problems seemed to fade away.

Lesson for the day:  Stay focused on what is ahead – have a clear vision.

Some Bible verses that go along with today’s lesson:

Where there is no vision, the people perish  Proverbs 29:18

But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 3:13-14

Soli deo gloria

~Sarah