PASTOR’S PONDERINGS

This month includes the “Run for the Roses,” one of the most famous of all horse races.  People from all over the world will gather in Kentucky to watch the world’s fastest, three-year-old thoroughbreds run 1.25 miles in what has been called the “most exciting two minutes in sports:” the Kentucky Derby.
Though raised in suburban settings, I spent some time with horses at the camps I attended.  I learned a lot about horses, including that they have a herd mentality, (they want to be with other horses), they are fairly easily trained once “broken,” and they aren’t really all that bright.
Interestingly enough, God’s Word says all that, and compares us to horses in Psalm 32.8-9: “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you. Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.”
God teaches us, those whom He has “broken” and brought to Himself.  Like the trainers who ready the horses for the Derby, He trains us for life and eternity.  He has given us His Word and His Holy Spirit to enable us to understand that Word and how it applies to the life He has called us to live.  Like the horse’s jockey, that same Holy Spirit is present with us each step of the race we run.
But, unlike the horse, we are not made to be controlled by the bit in our mouths.  We are not created without understanding or without freedom.  God’s expectation is that we will exercise our freed minds and our freed wills, no longer under sin’s control but under the control of righteousness and directed by His Holy Spirit, to run the race righteously, to run in such a way as to please Him.  But many times we choose to run to please ourselves.  We get off track and start running in the fields some place, not in the race at all.  We do not “come to God.”
God is not averse to using “bit and bridle” on us to keep us in the race.  He is very capable and willing to discipline us, those He loves.  But what He desires is that we love Him enough to run the race freely, to follow the gentle leadings of His Holy Spirit rather than the sometimes painful pull of the bit.
Here’s the challenge: let’s all choose this month, and every month, to run the race freely, to stay on track, and to listen closely to the leading of the Holy Spirit through the Scriptures, obeying what God says there, rather than rebelling against His Word and His promptings and willfully going our own way.  Let’s avoid the pain of God’s “bit.”  You think about that.

– Pastor Jim