Horse of a Different Color

 

What is your favorite color? If you asked the average person that, they would respond with a color like “blue”, “purple”, or “green”, but I like to say “buckskin” or “bay roan”. I guess I’m not an average person! I read recently that we can learn something about God or His principles from everything that He has put on this earth. God has used horse colors to teach me a valuable lesson and I’m reminded of it every day when I look at my horses, Ginger and Keziah.

Several years ago, my oldest two daughters and I went to Marmon Valley Farm for a mother/daughter horse camp. We didn’t have any horses at that time, so I was looking forward to being able to ride for several days. After settling into our accommodations (we were residing in a chicken coop for the weekend), we went out to inspect the horses. There were about 100, of every size and color imaginable. The workers were busy catching the horses that would be used for our first trail ride. As we all gathered at the barn, Wrangler Matt began to assign a horse or pony to each mother and daughter. This would be “our” horse for the weekend. I was elated when he pointed to a beautiful tri-color paint named “Apache”. Tri-color paint is probably my third favorite color after buckskin and bay roan.

As I helped saddle and bridle Apache I was dreaming of the great trail rides we would experience over the next few days. Since Lisa and Kristy were young and small they were assigned ponies. Both of their ponies were a nondescript brownish color. They definitely looked very ordinary compared to “my” Apache. Finally everyone in our group was ready to go. We all mounted and the horses followed along single file behind our trail guide. It was great to be out in the country, riding the trails up into the hills and woods. Everything was just perfect, all that I had imagined it would be, until I heard the trail guide call out one word that would change my entire weekend.

“Trot,” she yelled back to us. As the horses in front of me began to trot, I could feel Apache picking up speed as he walked faster and faster. When he realized he was not keeping up with the horse ahead of him, he began to trot. I guess it was a trot. I grew up riding horses and this trot was the roughest gait I had ever experienced in my life. It was absolutely bone-jarring as I pounded up and down in the saddle. I wondered if the trail guide would ever go back to a walk. I looked at Lisa and Kristy who were laughing with delight as their little mealy-brown ponies trotted along. Suddenly Apache’s beautiful coloring seemed much less important to me than it had before. In fact at that moment I would have gladly traded him for the ugliest horse on the farm as long as it had a smooth trot. I survived that trail ride, but rather than eagerly anticipating our remaining rides, I was dreading them.

God taught me an important lesson that weekend. I had been judging the horses solely on what they looked like on the outside. I believed Apache was “better” because he had a flashier appearance. Although that weekend had a strong impact on me, I still hadn’t completely absorbed the lesson. When we were finally able to buy our own horses, what was one of my primary concerns? It was still color. I wanted a flashy, beautiful horse with a long, flowing mane and tail. I heard about a Missouri Foxtrotter for sale that sounded like the kind of horse I wanted. We went to take a look at Ginger and one of the first things I noticed was that she was a chestnut, my least favorite horse color. It’s kind of an orangish brown and is very common. I wanted something unique and exotic. She did not have the long, flowing mane and tail either. In fact she had practically no forelock at all. After riding her I decided to buy her anyway, despite the fact that she didn’t meet my appearance requirements.

A few years later we bought my middle daughter’s horse, Satin. Satin was in foal when we bought her. She is black and the sire of this foal was a beautiful golden palomino. The foal was going to be my horse, so I began dreaming of what color she would be – perhaps palomino, buckskin, or black with big, bold, white markings. Fortunately we were right there when Keziah was born. Guess what color she was? Chestnut! Foals usually begin shedding their baby coats at about four months. Sometimes they turn a totally different color at that time. I had convinced myself that when Kezi started to shed, she would be transformed into a gleaming, golden palomino. You know what? Kezi was born in 2002 and she is still a chestnut. She never turned colors, but she has turned out to be the sweetest and gentlest horse I have ever had.

Okay God, I know I’m a slow learner sometimes, but I think I finally understand. It’s not what is on the outside that is important, but what is on the inside. Every day when I look at my two "orange" horses I am reminded of 1 Samuel 16:7 "The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."

What is true about horses is even more so with people. It is easy to make hasty judgments about people based on their outward appearance. We do it in both a positive and a negative way. If someone looks beautiful, we may automatically assume that they are nice, but if they are not pleasing to look at, we may judge them harshly and try to avoid them. What God wants us to do is to get to know people's hearts. That should be more important to us than what someone looks like.

 

Try to look beyond the surface and get to know people from the inside out.

 

	Buckskin: a golden or yellowish colored coat with black mane, tail, ear tips, and leg markings
	Bay Roan: a bay is reddish brown with black mane, tail, ear tips, and leg markings; a bay roan is a bay colored horse with white hairs intermingled in the body coat, the head does not usually have the white hairs and will be distinctively darker than the body
	Tri-color paint: a tri-color paint is a spotted horse, bay with white, some black mixed in the mane and tail, and black markings on the legs