I discovered a new jogging path the other day in the “woods” of Fullerton. What this really means is that if you squint your eyes, don’t look to the right or the left, and play nature sounds on your iPod you can almost imagine you have left suburbia. Even so, it beats running on the sidewalk, since there is real dirt under your feet and real trees that grew there on their own, instead of being transplanted like most of southern California.
While enjoying this vague resemblance to nature I came across a tiny paddock with a stable and two horses inside. This is not an unusual occurrence in California. I was shocked the first time I saw what is a permissible allotment of space for farm animals. Where I grew up you had to have at least 2 acres for a horse, and these poor animals are regularly kept in the California interpretation of that standard, which is something closer to the size of your patio.
Well, I stopped to say hello to these fine beasts and took a moment to observe their attitudes about life. One of them was gettin’ on in years and the quarters seemed to fit him fairly well. The other horse was an entirely different story. He so didn’t belong there.
But what made me sad was that he wasn’t pacing or cribbing or throwing his head in a spirited appeal to get out of his prison. He just stood there. When I looked at him I could feel the echo of thousands of years of wild freedom coursing through his veins, like a faint voice calling from the past. But he had long ago tuned out that voice and surrendered himself to the monotony of life in southern California. My spirit ached to breathe life into the smoldering fire of beauty, grace, and passion that could flow from those hooves.
That horse was made for something so much bigger than what he was living. I grieved over the extreme disparity of the two.
It grieves me even more to know that this is where a lot of people live every day. God made you to be big, to be free, to be immense in spirit and soul, but the reality of your life is like the tiny California pasture. I wish I could walk the world over and unlatch the gate of every paddock that confines a big person to a little world.
I will, however, offer this encouragement to you, from the depths of my experience. God was there first, and His fingerprints do not disappear. Whether you are in your current reality because of trauma, neglect, poor choices, or some destructive combination of all three, His fingerprint on you still remains. No amount of toxicity or defilement can remove it, no number of locked gates or tiny pastures can make them die a permanent death. They will endure any of the hardships this world can inflict.
Don’t lose hope. Don’t give up on God. Even if you must endure a season of confinement, don’t let it eat away your confidence in His design. If you must wait, wait. Use the time to develop something. Work on character, spiritual authority, skill sets or relationships. Do NOT let the fire fade from your eyes. If you resign yourself to the disappearance of all hope of fulfillment, you will miss God when His time comes. It’s entirely possible, if given the chance, that horse could not reconnect with the Fingerprint of his design. Maybe he drowned out the voice one too many times and would plod right on past his chance to be free. That would be a tragedy more grievous than his original imprisonment. I know that allowing the voice of your design to sound in the midst of your captivity can be a pain too great to bear. But instead of shutting it down, I encourage you to take it to Christ, who simply by existence on earth confined His immensity to a paddock so relatively small as to be microscopic. Let His wisdom, grace, and longsuffering instruct you in walking out this tension without destruction.
May you rise, with intensity, dignity and anticipation for your time, when it comes, knowing that in the season of confinement you prepared for the moment of His glorious redemption of you.
rimoftheworld7.com 
such life-giving words. thank you. i have been that horse and only realized it in recent years. after pursuing and receiving incredible depths of healing, it seems that this season of confinement is coming to a close. i am beginning to enter my destiny, at least an aspect of it – and my desire is to do so with the strength, grace, and dignity i receive as i gaze into the face of Jesus. thank you for these words.
I love this post for many reasons, as a human being I relate to being in confining places in my life and believe that getting the perspective of “God was here first” is the perspective we need to succeed.
But also to understand that sometimes we need to break out like a butterfly from a cocoon when we have outgrown the space we are in. At time we allow our past or the way others perceive us to dictate the space we fill, this is such a sorry state of affairs. Rather, we should be like Paul, – Philippians 3:13: Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, ”
Megan as you have written before, we live in a continuum of time but we need God’s perspective of where we are and what we need to take with us from each age or season.
The other reason I love this is the animal perspective, if only more humans understood that animals can be depressed and have a distinct purpose as individuals, as breeds and as species, to cross the boundaries is so mean and cruel as they are mostly unable to communicate their pain.
But perhaps you can communicate with the depressed animal and minister to it’s inner being and remind it that his kind will bear the King of Kings on His return and restore the horse’s dignity with that.
so well written megan. Speaking from the “halls of confinement, I can relate to what you say, sometimes it hard to keep the message and energy to wait the opening of the door, but through it all I have spent time studying and investing in my heart.
In stead of fighting the confinement, I have learned to accept the confinement but not allow the confinement to define me. I am defined by my destiny and the love of God. Confinement does not rule me, but its borders constrain me………..
No dear, I don’t have language to respond to this other than … tears. It is as though you spoke our Fathers words to me in answer to the cry on my heart today.
Blessings ~
What a lovely post – thanks Megan!
Hope you had a great Christmas!
September
Thank you Megan for exquisitely describing what has been very painful at times…feeling that confinement. I had recently begun to truly feel the freedom inside and express outside even though circumstances have not changes drastically. Bless you!
Megan,
This lovely message is proving to be one of those that ‘sticks’ and demands action. It also takes the victim thing completely out of the equation. In application, I am finding many, many things I can do not only in spite of the circumstance but even in co-operation with it, so to speak. Meaning that the circumstance can be a teacher, in a way. And it can also be the fire the Holy Spirit is lighting under my butt to GET GOING. 🙂 So, thanks and blessings, again.
~Roslyn, not a senior at the end of a frustrating road but a beautiful wild horse finding freedom in Him ~
Hmm Wow I really needed to read this, thank you Megan
for all of the encouragment and insight. I will be rereading this and soaking in the truths of God was there first, and his fingerprints do not disappear. The horse was made for something bigger, God made you to be big, free immense, free in spirit and soul, just all of it, and “don’t let the fire fade from your eyes”. could cry on that one.
Many new insights to flow to you and bring release to all who read.
LaVonne
I needed to hear this.