Today was the first day of a very long adventure. Today was the day I brought home my new “project.” This project is a 3 year old, smokey grey gelding; the prettiest and sweetest horse you will ever meet. But today was a learning day for us both, you see, I’ve saddle broke quite a number of horses; that being said, this one gave me quite the surprise.

I had him in the round-pen and we had been lunging for quite a while, we went around and around to one side, then I sent him back in the other direction, just admiring his graceful movements. After we had been working for quite some time I decided we’d try something new; we’d try on a saddle, no big deal right? WRONG.

I pulled my saddle blanket out and we had a good time with that, no spook, no buck, he didn’t even seem to mind. He was the most polite gentleman I had ever met, then came time for the saddle. I brought it up to his nose and let him sniff it, then I pressed it to his shoulder so he could feel it and gently worked it over his body so he got to feel the weight. It didn’t even phase him, he stared at the window at some passing horses then settled down, I did up the cinch and he froze. No movement, he hardly even took a breath.

That’s odd, I thought.

I let him stand for a minute then he tried to take a step.

Was that ever a mistake.

As he felt the cinch tighten he went straight up and the rodeo bronc in him came out just a little bit. I stood back and watched as he plunged and ran; a thought floated through my mind.

Isn’t that sometimes how we can be?

Sometimes things happen in our life and we don’t like them, not one bit. We fight them and try desperately to change them, we beg and plead with God, hoping He’ll suddenly side with us and take it away.

That isn’t how things work out though, is it?

Just like I couldn’t take the saddle off of him until he calmed down and realized it wasn’t going to hurt him, so God has to wait for us to fully rely on Him and accept that some things we just won’t understand. My new project is full of alfalfa and oats tonight, sleeping so very soundly. Life wasn’t so hard after he figured out I was just trying to teach him the right way about things.

That’s kind of how this life is, once we figure out that it’s all not that bad, we just have to have a little faith, it all turns out okay. I promise you it will, one day you’re going to look back and realize, God was just teaching you a better way to do things, and just like I stayed by his side until he figured it out, God has stayed by yours.