IT'S ALL ABOUT THE YIELD
"Do not be stiff-necked as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to the Lord, ..."
(2 Corinthians 30: 8)
Before I get in the saddle, I make sure my horses are willing to yield their body to me.
LEARN TO YIELD -
CHANGE YOUR LIFE
In this picture, I'm using two handy-sticks to cue my horse to yield his head/face/neck to the right. Since no reins are involved here, my horse has to be a willing partner.
When I was young and just learning to ride horses, I had one agenda - get on and go somewhere fast! You might ask, "How did that work out for you?" Honestly, not so good. In those days, I didn't have a clue about safety, groundwork, or pre-flight checks. As a consequence, I ate a lot of dirt. And I'd certainly never heard about "yielding the hind and fore quarters". Shoot, I didn't even know what the hind and fore quarters were! The truth is, my ignorance, and what I didn't know, could have gotten me seriously hurt, or even killed.
Years later, people known as "horse clinicians" started to become popular. One day, someone told me about a clinic being offered in our area. Although I was much older by this time, I still wasn't much wiser. However, I was fully aware that I was a lot more fragile than I had been back in my younger days. Back then, a fall off my horse, or even getting bucked off simply meant a sore back or hiney for a few days, and wounded pride. Now it was far more serious. It meant ice packs, a bad limp, and maybe even weeks of anti-inflammatory drugs just in order to walk!
Nevertheless, I was a bonafide graduate from the school of hard-knocks. Horses were my passion, and I was determined to keep riding. Still, I knew something had to change. I didn't have the knowledge I needed to "fix" my horse problems. And where my knowledge had ended - my frustration had begun. Finally, I realized that I was the one who had to change. That's the day I signed up for my first horse clinic. It would be a day that would change my life forever.
TO YIELD MEANS TO PASSIVELY GIVE UP RESISTANCE
The clinician stepped into the arena, looked each person square in the eyes, and said, "Today, you are going to teach your horse how to yield his body to you. The success of everything else you hope to do with your horse depends on how well he learns this lesson."
In Greek, the word Hupeiko means to yield. To yield means to passively surrender to an authority. The word "passively" is important here. The act of yielding one's self passively means to give up resistance. If there's resistance, then it's not a yield. It's a contest!
Now, many years later, I fully understand what that horse clinician meant when he said that the success of everything I wanted to do with my horse depended on how well he learned to yield his body to me. When I ride, I ride my entire horse's body. Yes, I'm sitting in the middle of his back, but I'm riding his fore-quarters, and his hind-quarters, too. I'm also riding his feet, and I'm riding his emotions, and I'm riding his brain. In essence, I'm riding the whole horse. As a consequence, when I'm in the saddle, I want my horse to "yield his entire body" to me. In other words, I want control of all of him, and not just a part of him. Horse wrecks happen, in large part, because we only have control over a part of our horse, and not the whole horse. In other words, he has not yielded his entire body to us. It may seem overly simplified, but in the same way that we want our horses to yield their entire body to us, God wants you and me to yield and surrender our entire lives to Him. When we don't yield our entire lives to God, we often end up in a wreck of our own making. When it comes to my horse, I expect him to be fully involved - fully committed - fully surrendered - fully mine - and fully yielded to me. It's the same with us, and our relationship with God. It requires everything of us, or it is nothing.
TRUSTING EQUALS
YIELDING
"Yield now and be at peace with Him; thereby good will come to you."
(Job 22: 21, NASB)
I'm always "hands-on" with my horse, and I am always asking him to yield to the pressure of my touch. He yields to me because he knows me, and he's learned to trust me with his life.
For horses and people, learning how to yield is remarkably similar. The prerequisite for both is knowing who your heavenly daddy is, and knowing you can trust him with your life. And why is that important? It's important because neither horses, nor people, are going to yield to someone that they do not recognize and acknowledge as the one who holds authority!
ARE WE THICK-SKINNED OR
THIN- SKINNED?
I train my horses to recognize certain pressure points. In this picture, I'm putting light pressure on Samson's shoulder. When he turns (yields) his head in the correct direction, I immediately release the pressure. That tells him he made the right choice.
Everyone deals with pressure in different ways. And it's true, if you're alive and breathing, you've probably got pressure in your life. Before we take a look at people, let's look at how some horses deal with pressure. Everyone knows that horses are intuitive animals, and their ability to quickly assess a human's body language and act accordingly is nothing short of amazing. So, why is it that different horses act and respond differently to the exact same stimuli or pressure? Although there are probably several good reasons for the variance in different horse's behavior, I believe one of the important reasons has to do with a horse's over-all "sensitivity to and respect for" authority. This isn't anything I've read about in a text book, but it's something I've observed over and over again in my decades of horse ownership. My horses, Samson and Montana, are excellent examples of what I'm talking about. They are both quarter horses, share the same style of training, and both have easy going temperaments. But that is where their similarities end. Let me explain.
Pressure doesn't have to be hard to be effective. How much pressure do you apply? It depends on the horse and his sensitivity level. You apply the amount of pressure it takes to get the correct response, or in other words, a yield.
Let's talk horsenalities to help understand what's going on. Just like people have personalities, horses have horsenalities. The above picture is a good case in point. My horse, Samson, is a very thick-skinned horse. He isn't overly sensitive by any stretch of the imagination. This is a good time to point out that there is a big difference in being sensitive, and being responsive. While Samson is not overly sensitive, he is very responsive. If he were a person, he would be the one always saying, "Yes Ma'am, I will do that for you, and I will do it right now." On the up-side, because he's thick-skinned, he's very forgiving if I make a mistake or happen to cue him wrong. On the down-side, because he isn't particularly sensitive, it usually takes more pressure initially when teaching him a new cue. But the over-all fact is, he's a leader himself, therefore, he understands and is quite comfortable and at peace with my authority and leadership.
In this picture, Lil' Bit (miniature horse) isn't concerned when Samson and I come into his space. But Montana (far right) is more aware and sensitive. He is on instant alert just in case he should feel the need to flee, or "avoid" further pressure. This is a trademark of horses that are followers, and not leaders.
Now let's look at my other horse, Montana. He is the opposite of Samson. He is a natural born follower, and not a leader. In fact. he's seen the leader's job, and he doesn't want it! Although he isn't thin-skinned, and is in fact, quite brave, he is very sensitive to authority. Here's an example. I once watched him stand off a coyote who had snuck into the horse pasture looking for a weak victim. While I was still busy trying to calm my nerves, and load my Henry rifle so I could take a shot at the intruder, Montana gallantly charged the coyote, and had him running for his life with his tail between his legs! On the other hand, as the leader, I can ignite Montana's sensitivity by simply throwing a rope at his hiney too strongly, and asking for a yield of his hind-quarters with too much pressure. Over the years, I've learned that Montana isn't fearful, but because he is a follower, he's more sensitive to pressure. He feels that his life depends upon it. It took awhile before I woke up to the fact that my horses had different sensitivity levels due to their inherent horsenalities. Up until then, I trained them with a cookie-cutter mentality. That was wrong, and I no longer do that. Now I train my horses with the individual in mind, in order to develop their strengths, and not their weaknesses.
LET PATIENCE AND PRESSURE HAVE ITS PERFECT WORK
"But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing."
(James 1: 4)
Montana says to Lil' Bit, "Don't make eye contact, little buddy, or they'll up the pressure."
Montana often "tries my patience", but he's helped me to hone my leadership skills.
So, lets compare these horsenalities to some personalities. Let's face it, some people appear to be less sensitive to pressure, in general. In this case, less doesn't really mean less - it means more. Make sense? For some folks, pressures come and go, and they tend to ride it out without much fuss. They accept it, they deal with it, they move on. And how is that possible? Perhaps it's possible to a degree because of their ability to be thick-skinned. Or perhaps it's because of their ability to yield to God, and trust Him with their life. This begs the question of which came first - their thick-skinned attributes, or their ability to yield themselves to God, and trust Him fully. Since I'm a cowgirl preacher who is no stranger to danger, I'll take a stab at this tough question, and give my opinion!
I think the act of "yielding" ourselves to God is "an act of obedience" that, in itself, helps to produce a thicker-skin, and not the other way around. In other words, the more we yield, the tougher we get. And not tough in a bad way. But tough in a good way. When I say "thick-skin", I'm not talking about an unfeeling person with no sensitivity to the pressures of life. But I'm talking about an attribute that is born from a knowledgeable and trusting relationship with God; a relationship that empowers one to allow trouble to simply roll off their back like water off a duck, when every one else is thrashing around and fearful of drowning. I'm talking about the ability to cast every care upon the Lord, and trust Him completely. I'm talking bout a "been there, done that, got my T-shirt, and know God will bring me through again" thick-skinned mentality that responds to pressure with a Victor's heart. Afterall, how we think about pressure determines how we respond to it. I once heard Aussie horseman, Clinton Anderson, say something I've never forgotten. His words awoke the fear in me, and yet, in his humerous way, his words left me completely fearless at the same time.
"Alright, mate, let's face it. What's the worst thing that could happen here? That's right - you could die. No problem, mate, now get on your horse and ride!"
(Aussie Horseman, Clinton Anderson)
Hilarious, I know. But true. Afterall, what's the worst thing that could happen to you and me? Afterall, what's a little pressure? Nothing can separate us from the love of God! Not sickness. Not hardship. Not even death. Have you not heard? For those of us in Christ, death has no sting, nor does the grave have any victory. And yet, we often allow fear to stand between us and the life that God destined us to live. I think it's time to get the fear out. And perhaps, for some, it's time to develop a thicker-skin. But, for sure, it's time we all learned how to yield!
Now, say it loud and clear,
"It's all about the yield!"
