It is difficult to write a blog every day when your internet is in the barn. Of course I had a heater in the barn office but I took it out to put it on my front porch to start my plants, so it gets a little cold out there. My brother-in-law is using the upstairs loft of the office as a room so there is heat there but it doesn’t drift down.
As parents it is becoming more difficult to establish dominance over our kids. Even when you think that you have a good position of authority over them; they come home from school and tell you what their rights are and what you can or cannot do. With my older two all I had to do was to give them a dirty look when they were young and they would settle down. With my middle two is was the change of tone in my voice and with my youngest one it doesn’t matter what I do he still tries to rule the roost. Since we are a blended family he has two siblings that live with us who were to his mother’s ex-husband. The older of the two is autistic and the other has some learning issues as well so when he sees them not getting into trouble for things then he thinks that he can do them as well. I have tried to instill in my wife that they should all have the same consequences for poor behavior regardless of their disabilities because at 5 years old Chase doesn’t fully understand that they have problems. It’s a little humorous because I told my wife that she wouldn’t let her horses get away with as much as she lets her kids get away with. Over the years I have developed a pretty solid way of establishing my dominance over the horse without breaking the horse’s spirit. In the majority of the horses that I have dealt with it has worked as planned; while in the ones that have not accepted my position immediately I was able to eventually establish it. In those cases I was able to glean from the experience different ways to deal with the different personalities of the horse. I have since created a personality profile for horses to be able to better understand how to work with each of them.
I begin to work towards establishing dominance the moment I begin my introduction. Having watched horses when they have been introduced into a new herd I studied how they interacted with each other and how they decided whether to accept or reject the new horse. This decision was based upon the new horse’s personality and their willingness to accept the authority of the lead horse. If the lead horse accepted it then the others would as well although in some cases they would have to work out the pecking order as to who the next in charge would be.
The ease of the establishment of the dominance over the horse depends on where the horse is in regards to that pecking order. The more docile the horse or the lower on the rung it is the easier it is to establish dominance. The one thing that I found is that when I put the lead horse under my authority in the presence of the others it is easier to gain their trust and acceptance.
Again my objective is to not break their spirit but to develop in them a desire to want to please me, obeying my commands not out of necessity but because of the desire to please. They were after all created for this and it wasn’t until after the flood that God put the fear of us in them so what we are attempting to accomplish is inherently created in them and we are simply working towards re-establishing that initial bond that was between us at creation.
Since I have watched the horses react to each other I use the same method that they do in establish dominance over them; I then turn my back to them and walk away. If they follow me then I know that I have made that connection but if they don’t I return to them and go through the process again, until they do. Now just because they followed doesn’t mean that the dominance is automatically established. There is still more work to be done but each process of the development of the relationship puts us that much closer to the complete dominance over the horse.
The same is true in our relationship with Jesus Christ. He wants dominance over our lives not because He wants rule over us as a tyrant but because as our Creator He knows what is best for us much in the same way we know what is best for our children. When I was four or five we were over at Grandma and Grandpa Tillia's. As we walked up to the barn dad saw me looking at the fence so he said don’t touch it. It will bite you. As he continued to walk to the barn I stayed there looking at the fence. He knew that I wasn’t following him and he also knew that I was going to touch the fence. He could have grabbed my arm and led me away from the fence but he also knew that I had to experience the result of it myself. He was establishing dominance over me by allowing me to experience the pain that was sure to follow so that I would learn that when he said not to do something that there was a pretty good reason to listen; basically because he was right about the outcome.
As I stood there looking at it I can still remember thinking; how is this thing going to bite me, it has no teeth. As I reached out to grab it I was a little hesitant because dad had told me not to, so I looked around to see if anyone was going to stop me and when I didn’t see anyone I grabbed a hold of it and within seconds I was up in the air and headed to the house screaming. The funny thing was that my boots were still there by the fence standing straight up.
When we trust Jesus to be our Savior we are surrendering to Him, or at least we should be. I have a hard time believing that if we do not submit to Him at that time that we have actually accomplished anything. I have seen people go forward, claim to have trusted Jesus and continue living in the same manner that they had always lived and then I have seen people like my brother-in-law who after he trusted Christ there was a complete turn-around in his life. Jesus told Nicodemus that “you must be born again”. It was not going back into his mother’s womb but becoming like a child whose complete dependence for their survival is on their parent. They place all their trust and faith in that parent but unlike a parent who can make mistakes, He never does.
Jesus said; “he who does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me”. If we are not willing to forsake all that we have and are then have we really accepted Him as our Savior or are we merely going through the motion of thinking we have insurance from Hell? The truth is that if there is no evidence of fruit there should be doubt as to the realness of your relationship with Him.
The evidence that I know I have dominance over my child is that they obey me, not out of fear but out of love. It is the same evidence that I have when I have established dominance over my horse. It obeys me not because it has to but because it wants to. These relationships develop over time to the point where I simply have to change the tone of my voice or place a hand on them and they will immediately cease their bad behavior. One problem is that it takes much longer to get to that point with a child than it does with a horse.
Why? The answer is simple because we are born of Adam. We are born in sin and with the free will to sin. The horse is not. It was created to glorify God and to provide us with enjoyment and while the fear of us was placed in it after the flood it will accept us in the position that God gave us. We on the other hand have the propensity to sin; even after we turn our lives over to Christ we will sin but we shouldn’t run towards it.
As our relationship develops with Him, the Holy Spirit will lay upon our hearts things that are displeasing to Him. This is a whole other topic because there are many who think certain ways but the truth is found in God’s word and I won’t get into it now. Perhaps at a later time as we look into some of the other aspects of the relationship development.
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