Saddle Up!! Final in Meekness for the Preakness series

  " Saddle up your horses-
We've got a trail to blaze
Through the wild blue yonder of God's amazing grace
Let's follow our leader into the glorious unknown
This is the life like no other, whoa whoa
This is the great adventure

Yeah

Come on, get ready for the ride of your life
Gonna leave long faced religion
In a cloud of dust behind
And discover all the new horizons
Just waiting to be explored
This is what we were created for, yeah "

So, you have been corralled by His love, 

taught to accept His reign,

and acquired skills necessary for navigating 

the course of life. 

That entire process was only the prelude to being a 

"horse" prepared to race.

 The most difficult, most painful

part after submitting, learning and being shaped

 was to be told that now you have to be confined and wait. 

"WHAT? Shut the gate? "

 I have been enlarged beyond 

anything I ever dreamed possible, 

and You want me

to squeeze into that tiny,

 harsh, 

anonymous starting gate?

YES, I am bucking, I am  kicking AND snorting!!!

WHY did You do all this? Why all the months of training, 

if only to wait? To be shut into this starting gate???

Starting?? Really?  I thought we began a LONG time ago?"

Are we calmed down yet?  

 Has meekness finally settled like a blanket

over your soul?  

It has over mine. 

Oh, it took awhile! This whole series began one day

                          in prayer, seeking God's word for me and us as a couple 
in a very loooooooooooooooooooong and trying season,

   I saw a Chrysanthemum.

 I had no idea what it meant, but the vision was very clear. 

The individual petals and the layers of them were easily distinguished.  
     I then heard the Lord whisper "Meekness" and was reminded of Jeremiah 12:5
 “If you have raced with men on foot
    and they have worn you out,
    how can you compete with horses?
If you stumble, only feel secure in safe country,
    how will you manage in the flooding of the thickets by the Jordan?

In researching the Preakness, 
I learned that a blanket of chrysanthemums covers the winner!

So even if you are STILL in that starting gate,
 know that  the special attention and ornamentation lavished on a royal steed
 is the figure used to represent Jehovah’s turning his favorable attention
 to his repentant people, making them like a victorious war horse in Zec 10:3-6.

  We are His wild souls

trained to run;  His beautiful thoroughbreds

 

wise in navigating fields and streams,  and equipped for victory in battle. 

 NOW was it worth it???