Tale of Two Horseys

Good afternoon leaders, clients, donors, and friends,

This weekend I saw the thrill of victory and…the thrill of victory!

I had an abiding personal interest in two stories witnessed by “large” audiences who saw amazing drama unfold. One “large” audience included 157,000 people live and 16.7 million on TV. The other had about 50,000 live and thousands more online. They were big stories, with relevance for leaders. Here they are briefly.

The Kentucky Derby had its closest three-horse photo finish since 1947, as Mystic Dan, not the odds-on-favorite, won in a minor upset. It was fun for us as our friends own and breed Mystic Dan’s grandsire, a champion himself, Into Mischief. So grandpops is happy and proud.

The other event featured Todd Pierce, a former wild man rodeo cowboy who went through a relatively dramatic life transformation, and now runs Riding High Ministries from Idaho. Imagine showing up at church and seeing a mini-corral built on the stage, complete with rails, dirt, and a horse who’s never been trained, never had a saddle on him, never trusted a human being. All the horse had done is follow the guy with the food.

Todd proceeded to woo, win, and train the horse while giving a message that explained his strategy and the relationship he was building with the horse, and comparing it to how God (if you’re not a person of faith, brace yourself here!) woos us and wins us. And, if we’re willing, He trains us. A couple of the best quotes:

• “I want him to know that he’s safe, but there’s no way I can convince him of that until he trusts me a bit.”
• “What he doesn’t know is that I know something that he doesn’t know. He’s been selected, by his ranch owner, not because he decided to, to have an opportunity to learn something about himself he doesn’t know is true, to discover a higher purpose for his existence.”
• “No other animal benefits man and the animal more than a horse. He carries me to where I can’t go and makes me stronger. And, he can’t achieve his highest purpose until he and I become one.”
• “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends (John 15:13).”
• “There are a lot of what I call ‘Christian Atheists.’ Ask ‘em on a Sunday if they believe, they’ll say ‘yes,’ but do our lives, our decisions, our direction reflect it? …The Bible says ‘even the demons believe.’”
• “Do you wanna be fully alive, or settle and keep going in the direction you’re going?”

That’s the tale of two horseys. If you’d like, you can see the race here, Todd’s story here, or Todd and a horse at church here. Thanks for listening again on this Monday, and thanks for your support of our Foundation. And we have two spots left for fly-fishing in Montana this summer. Make it a great week, -D