God riding is an idea that God gave me one day while cleaning the stables. He was kind of daydreaming thinking about all the different types of horsemanship I hear about today, especially this “natural horsemanship” business. It seems that everyone has their own version of natural horsemanship. These trainers and doctors put a different name in front of it so it sounds different and they can call it their own, but if you look at a lot of them closely, they’re basically all using the same methods with their own little twist here and there. , doing the same thing getting similar results. Now I will not say that these trainers and doctors are not talented, today I learn a lot from many of them and I commend them for their hard work and knowledge.
But for me it goes a little beyond horse training. While I was still in the stable, I started thinking to myself… what is natural riding who came up with this?
God created horses, right? (Gen.1: 24-25) he Then he created man to take care of these animals (Gen.1: 26) and then allowed man to give them names (Gen.2: 19-20).
Who gives me ability to train these horses? So I started to think a little more about the methods I learned and use to train horses. Then it occurred to me that what I was doing was not natural horsemanship but God’s horsemanship.
The horsemanship of God for me is my relationship with God and then with the animal and, in this case, with the horse. This relationship has allowed me to learn about God and the horse, which teaches me a lot about myself and the things I need to change in my life. Also my relationship with the horse teaches me more about the personality of God and how my relationship with him should be.
God’s ultimate goal is to earn our trust in him, and likewise, our ultimate goal is to earn our horses’ trust in us. For example, I find that God allows certain pressures in our life (never more than we can handle) until we give up and start trusting him to achieve greatness with us, the same way when I’m training a horse I allow feel a certain amount of pressure (never more than he can handle) until he gives in and learns to trust me to achieve greatness with him.
I also learn lessons from the horse, for example, horses don’t see color lines or particular breeds. All they see are human beings. When my horse and I disagree about something on a particular day, we may stop coming back the next day and have completely forgotten about the day before. Horses don’t hold a grudge against people, that’s how we should be with each other. Horses are always willing to try again, very humble.
I have many other lessons that I learn every day, but I just wanted to share a few.