Skip the Jump

My oldest daughter is passionate about riding horses which means we spend hours at the barn each week.

One Saturday morning we attended a horse show. We watched as a girl was jumping a line of two jumps. The horse jumped over the first crossbars and then refused the second jump. The girl circled the horse to redo the jump. Her trainer yelled for her to skip the first jump and go straight to the second one.

The girl nodded as if she heard the direction. She completed her circle and steered the horse over the first jump. The horse yet again shied away from the second jump. The horse and rider circled again, the trainer yelled the same thing, “just jump the second jump.”

The girl headed towards the jump and jumped over both jumps this time. I was glad to see she had gotten the horse to jump over both jumps, yet she hadn’t taken the trainer’s advice. Both times she nodded her head as if she comprehended what the trainer said. Both times she ignored the advice of the trainer.

This reminds me of our faith journey. Have there been times in your life when God tells you to skip the jump? You hear Him. You understand what He is saying, yet you can’t resist the temptation to go over the jump.

Why do we do this? Why do we ignore the advice of our wise and loving God? He has our best interests at heart, yet sometimes we think we know best.

Just like the trainer and rider didn’t seem to be on the same page that day, we often can miss the playbook God has written. We make up our own course and ride it out. Sometimes we have to learn the hard way.

God is like that trainer, showing us the correct path to take, yet forgiving us when we go astray. He molds us and grows us with each mess up we make.