A Horse With A Rider

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“Should I keep going in this, Father?,” I’d repeatedly prayed. “I know that this was Your purpose for me back then, but do You still want Me to continue? Is this one of those things that You want out of my life?”

I was praying about whether or not I should continue in something with which I’d been involved for some years. I shouldn’t have been, but I was pressing for an answer.

Sometimes we pray and pray and never stop to nestle into Father’s lap and just be there. Just be there with Him. And if He wants to talk, He will. We all forget that at times along the way. This was one of those times for me. I’d been praying about this “thing” so much that this had become a central focus of my prayer life, and that’s not what God wants. To Him, it’s never about the “things.” It's about Him and us.

One day, my 4-year old son came to me and said, “Dad, I have a picture that I drew, and I think that God wants me to give it to Messerschmez.” I didn’t quite hear the name clearly, but thought I knew what he’d said. I said, “Sure, son, I’ll drive you over there to where Mrs. Messerschmez works and you can give it to her.” My son gave me a puzzled look for several seconds and then said, “OK, Dad.”

We drove to the parking lot of the store where Mrs. Messerschmez worked and parked. After we had prayed, I said, “C’mon, let’s go give that picture to Mrs. Messerschmez.” My son got this uncomfortable look on his face and said, “Dad?” “Yes?,” I replied. “Dad, the picture isn’t for Mrs. Messerschmez. I was supposed to give it to you.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, son,” I answered, and helped him to come sit in the front seat next to me so we could talk. “You have to write something on the picture for me, Dad, ‘cause I can’t write it,” my son asked. With that, he placed the picture in my hands.

On the paper were two pictures. One was a horse. The other was a horse with a rider. “Write down what God told me to tell you, Dad.” “OK, son.”

“On the bottom of the picture,” he said, “write, A horse with a rider is better than a horse.”

I began crying, while assuring him that they were the good kind of tears. “Do you understand, Dad?,” he asked. “Yes, son, I understand.”

Sometimes we get so focused on the horse that we forget just how much Father cares about us, the rider. To Father, horses come and go. They are ways and means for times and seasons. They all will pass away. They cannot be loved by Him, nor can they love Him back. He doesn’t care about horses. His love for us, however, is constant and eternal. We are the apple of His eye.

A horse with a rider is better than a horse.



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