Move Those Feet

“Move those feet” is one of the most common phrases you hear today in the horse world when things are not going right. The other, “If you get the feet you get the mind”. I worked and lived with those concepts for years in trying to help horses and people work together with varying degrees of success.

It wasn’t until I met Harry Whitney that realized how incompatible such statements were with having a willing, trouble free horse. Yes, one can move his feet, and if you know where those feet are at, one can keep themselves from a wreck of disaster. But just moving the feet never changes the horse for the better nor does it give him confidence in the rider.

People now say about me “He teaches you how to move the mind, and the feet will naturally follow”. To me it is really very simple. The horse being a horse always follows the direction of his thoughts.

I see a wonderful correlation to this and the exhortation from The Word to renew our minds. People everywhere try to change their unwanted behaviors by doing something different, i.e. start a new diet, move to a different locality, find a different friend, etc. Truth be known we cannot change unless our mind and thought pattern has a change. Hence the admonition to renew your mind. That will mean letting go of certain thoughts, leading that list would be those of a negative nature, and taking up others that would be more in line with wholesome creativity. It is via the Holy Spirit in Christ Jesus that such a lifestyle becomes truly possible.

For our horses, until you can get a lasting change of thought, one can move his feet until you both wear thin in try and patience and he will take nothing positive from the experience and remain unchanged in his attitude and willingness to respond to our requests.

And, for us, until we are willing to let Christ have His way with our minds, we will continually traverse the same old trails without any lasting peace and joy in our lives.

Blessings and Happy Trails,
Charley