With friends at the Santa Fe Grand Prix, I recently watched horses and their riders exhibit the fine connection which makes for great horseback riding. The jumps were high and the leaps strong. The riders were deeply connecting to their horses in various ways, some by mind, some by voice, some by legs, some by rein and some by seat. But with few exceptions, they connected to their horses – wandering the route in advance to show them that certain darker jumps were not as frightening as they seemed to them at a glance.
Reaching down and regularly patting their broad necks and cooing words of comfort and encouragement, the riders connected with their horse.
“The horse and the rider” is a constant theme in Christian and other literature as a metaphor for God and we hairless bipeds.
The horse is motivated to run and jump, run and jump, run and jump. And God seems to do that with us as well. God shows us things so that we will greet them later with less fear. God sometimes even has us walk the route (meditation, dreams, visions, confidences, gut-awareness) so that we do not reach a jump and falter. Well, not too often.
This horse would make this jump, but not all of them. And we humans are the same. We make many jumps but do not clear all. Such is a race. Such is life. But we go. We connect with our rider-God and we go. We run. We jump. We connect and run the race together. Sometimes we break free and run off and need to be corralled. Sometimes we balk at direction and new soothing words come. Sometimes we run and jump and even clear. And when that happens God seems to find ways for the high-five. If we are looking for it. If we can hear or see it.