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faith

It’s Easy To Fall Off A Horse

I met a girl named Faith.  The daughter of a minister at church, she was very beautiful.  I asked her out on a date and to my surprise, she said yes.  At our farm, my parents kept horses, so I thought taking her on a horse ride would be sort of different and romantic.

Horses are funny, many times they inflate their bellies when you cinch up the saddle.  Afterwards,  they relax so the strap isn’t so tight.  This is why you have to re-cinch the saddle strap after a riding a while.  If you forget, you, along with your saddle, might slip and roll to the underbelly of your steed.

The dangers of bareback

I, on the other hand, always preferred to ride bareback.  I like feeling more connected with my horse.  My horse, named Soroko, was fat, for he loved to eat, but was good-natured most of the time.  Faith rode a horse named Coke; a former racehorse.  Unfortunately, Coke had a bad habit of running back to the barn if you lost control. I planned to just walk the trails that day, thinking that coke wouldn’t be a problem.

The sun shone as we rode through the woods and talked.  Our farm sat behind 500 acres of wilderness.  Riding through the trails and trees I thought our date was going splendidly when suddenly a deer jumped out in front of us and spooked our horses.  Like the Lone Ranger, Soroko reared up and I fell to the ground, landing on my back.  From ground level, dazed and out of breath, I turned and saw both horses running away at a full gallop with faith hanging on for dear life.

My faith, in Jesus name!

Catching my breath I began to run after them.  Scary visions of finding Faith on the road unconscious or with something broken flooded my mind.  Coke, being a former racehorse, was lighting fast.  I was quite sure Faith couldn’t hang on once he got his head.  Still catching my breath I ran as fast as I could.  All of a sudden I remembered the scripture that said,

If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.

John 14:14

I stopped running and started saying in a loud voice, “In the name of Jesus I command the horses to stop!”  I prayed like this for several minutes and then, not knowing if anything was happening, started running home again.

Faith said, “The horses just stopped!”

Thankfully, I found Faith safe, at the barn, with the horses.  She was badly shaken and her arms were bruised from holding the saddle so tightly.  Poor girl, her legs were so sore, she could barely walk.  I felt terrible and, needless to say, that was our first and last date.

Driving her back home we did not talk much at first.  After a while Faith did say, “It was the strangest thing. I was so scared and my arms were so tired I did not think I could hold on much longer.  Then all of a sudden, in sight of the barn, both horses just stopped. A soon as I re-gripped the reigns and saddle they took off again. Isn’t that funny?!?”   “Wow,” I thought to myself, “It really did work!”

Believing all the way

Though I lost a girlfriend that day I learned something about my faith.  God’s word is true and if we will step out in faith, even in a crisis, He will do anything we ask of Him.  I believe that if I would have simply believed God all the way, Faith might have had time to dismount and walk home.  Thankfully, nothing worse happened to her and me than her sore arms and my bruised ego.  The lesson I learned is this,

” If you are going to believe for something impossible, you need to do it all the way.

Next time something happens I pray that God helps my faith so that I can stand firm on His word and see total deliverance.  God is so amazing!

Exodus played by Maksim

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