Mister

Well, it's been a number of months, but we're equine owners again! This is our new addition to the family. His name is "Mister". Actually his name is long and complicated and doesn't even contain the word "Mister", but that's what my wife has decided to call him. And since she'll be doing most of the work, she gets to name him.

Faithful readers (also known as people with too much time on their hands) will remember that we lost our little grey Welsh pony back in March after spending eight years with him. This month, my wife culminated her horse shopping experience by picking up this quarter horse for more than a few quarters.

Mister is bigger than Cracker Jack was. He is a different color. He also has a much different temperment. Where Cracker was more like a dog, following us around the pasture, Mister is a real handful on the ground. He is much more interested in the green grass surrounding him than in anything I have to tell him.

Then again, Mister loves to be ridden. He just hates to be led around. He wants to be put to good use -- whether walking my daughter around the yard or galloping down the fence row with my wife urging him to go faster. In his mind, it's: "Carrying someone on my back is good, being led around is bad".

I'm just kinda thinking here, but isn't it interesting that most people would reverse those twp things. We would prefer to be led from place to place, being shown what to do, rather than carrying the load ourselves. It's much easier to have someone lay out all the instructions than to take up our cross or be an example to others.

Horses are working animals. People (the smarter of the two) depend upon horses to do specific tasks. Horses are effective tools when they are being used by a good horseman.

We too are to be effective tools. We are to be used my God (again, the smarter of the two) to do specific tasks, which Scripture says have been laid out for us to do since before the foundation of the world was laid.

Maybe horses are actually the smart ones.