God’s first three commandments can be compared to the “Simon says” game in that they sharpen our brain.
The first commandment demands us to focus on God, and the next two help us do it. Just as in Simon says, there is a command to ignore and a command to move. The second commandment can be considered the command not to move and the third commandment the command to move.
With horses, we can get them to think better when we can get them to not be intimidated or impressed by things that should not move them, along with convincing them to move when they should move. A good horse person balances out the not-move stimuli with the do-move signals. This keeps them focused on us, and in thinking mode rather than reacting mode.
The second commandment warns us against having false gods. False gods unbalance us and get us to change our focus so we miss the real thing (not Coca-Cola). The third commandment is the “real thing” and points us to the source of the real thing. Everyone who is skilled with horses moves them with pressure, rhythmic pressure, or a combination of those two. This is comparable to plumb, level and square in carpentry. As we find these God given basics in any of our occupations (what is your occupation?), we can be extremely creative within these parameters, because we are on the road to becoming very aware of what can be changed and what cannot be. The most important thing about the third commandment is that God gets the credit for the free truths and we take blame for the misuse of them. This keeps us in “green we are growing mode” versus “ripe we are rotting mode.”
If we look back at all of recorded history, we will see people who became very aware of these basic truths, but missed sight of or never knew the designer, builder and maintainer of these commandments. In their excitement of becoming an extremely skilled individual, they began to think of themselves as a god, therefore in effect try to take the place of God. This caused them to
become unbalanced, and therefore begin to head toward a brick wall. Then if they didn’t recognize what was happening through God talking to them through their conscience or through other people, they ended badly.
When we are successful, we can easily become puffed up and therefore try to change rules that cannot be changed, thereby suffering the consequences if not in the short term, definitely in the long term.
My only hospital visit related to horses came from and incident with “Holly,” my good, well-broke quarter horse mare. Without determining whether she was in thinking mode versus reacting mode, I jumped on her bareback with no equipment in the pasture. She did some fast 360 spins and planted me in the ground – hard. I broke some ribs and tore a flap of skin loose above my elbow. I knew I would have to get the skin stitched back, so my wife April bandaged it up and I went to town to get parts for my Honda Civic first. I was contemplating asking a veterinarian to stitch me up, knowing how expensive a hospital was, but finally ended up at the emergency room (on a 4th of July weekend) to get the wound cleaned out and stitched. That stupid mistake (not tuning into Holly’s brain) cost me $1,000 (actually I “Gentiled” them down to $800).
I should have tested her with some move-no-move exercises, and had her circle me at liberty before I jumped on her back. Like John Wayne used to say, “life is tough, but when you’re stupid, it’s even tougher.”
So do I cuss God for giving me a brain that I do not use at times, or do I tip my hat to Him so he can help me use all of His resources wisely that he lets me use for free? Hopefully – and prayerfully – I will do the latter, helping me focus more and more on him all the time.
Mike Daniels is a horsemanship trainer and barefoot trimming specialist from Raymondville. Email him at rlhorse58@yahoo.com.