Ever heard the saying “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth?”
I’ve had a little bit of experience with gift horses over the years. The first gift horse I ever met happened along when I was twelve. He was a free-be thrown in along with another horse we bought from a family friend. His name was Sylvester. He was a twenty seven year old, bay, American Quarter Horse, one of the best horses I ever owned and the horse that I learned to really ride on.
Although I’m from Texas and have always ridden Western, the only way I can think to describe Sylvester is as an English gentleman through and through. He had a fine proud Roman nose, a dignified arched neck under saddle, and was the sweetest gentlest horse I ever met.
I hardly ever bothered to saddle him up. I was homeschooled and whenever I had a reading assignment, I’d run out into the pasture, hop up on Sylvester, lay down on his back and read while he grazed. When I did saddle him, we raced around the pasture as fast as his poor tired twenty-seven year old legs could go. I still remember the first time I went so fast the wind brought tears to my eyes!
Sylvester was an exceptional gift horse! He died a few years ago at the ripe age of thirty two and we’ve missed him ever since.
He definitely did not fit the saying. Not only was he a great horse but he had a pretty fair set of teeth in his head! And even though he was old, we didn’t have any trouble keeping weight on him until his last year.
A little bit ago, I met the proverbial “gift horse.” We’ll call him Bay. It wasn’t long after I met Bay (he belongs to some people I know) that I realized why he was a gift horse. Not only does Bay have a terrible limp (due to a leg injury) that crops up whenever he works too hard, he also has a bad habit of cribbing.
I realized one day that Bay takes a long time to eat anything and always slips his feed, so I looked into his mouth and instantly understood the proverb. Bay has no lower teeth. His lower teeth are worn down all the way to his gums. No wonder he couldn’t eat!
The idea behind the proverb, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” is that no one would give anything away unless it’s worthless. If you get a gift, just accept it at face value; don’t look at it took hard because you won’t like what you’ll see.
Well, God offers us a gift that’s far better than a gift horse. And you can look it in the mouth too, inspect it as closely as you like without finding any fault in it!
The gift that God offers us is the free gift of eternal life through the blood of His Son Jesus Christ.
Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
I heard it explained once this way: The gift of God is like a birthday present. What do you do to earn a birthday present? Absolutely nothing! You’ve lived another year. What did you have to do with that? The gift of God is like that – we have done absolutely nothing to earn it, we can do nothing to earn it, it’s free. He is offering it to us if we will but stretch out our hearts and take it!
Romans 3:23-24 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
Freely. A gift.
And all we must do is: “… Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved…” (Acts 16:31)
See, a “gift horse” is no true gift at all. It’s somebody’s problem, something they don’t want to have to bother with any more.
My horse Sylvester was not a “gift horse,” he was a true gift! And even more so, the salvation God offers us is a true gift if we will but accept it.
~ A Servant of the King
Star-Dreamer says
Good points all.
My sister received a gift horse when she was 16. She was told that she would get to go and pick the horse out herself, but instead the man brought a horse over that he didn't want anymore and we soon discovered why. That horse has a bad temper. She's older for sure, and she was saddle-broke, but first of all she was foundered and second she's just plain crabby. :( I'm serious. I was the only one who could handle her, and that's only because I was tough with her and didn't let her get her own way. We tried to be gentle: being gentle didn't work. She would bite us and kick us, and you may have been able to get a saddle on her and get on her back, but she wasn't going to go anywhere if she didn't want to. She'd rather throw you… which she did to me one time and ran right over me, and she wasn't too happy when I got right back up on her, let me tell you. <_< Stubborn as a mule, that one.
My sister's second horse we payed for, but at a very discounted price. He was a full blood Arabian with show bloodlines… we payed $300 for him which was about $300 less than what was originally asked, but after the original owner (an old christian woman who has a deep passion for horses) met my sister, she decided that Kayley and Prosperous were supposed to be together and she reduced the price. She comes out every year to see Kayley and Prosperous preform in our local 4-h fair and she has Kayely over sometimes to give her tips on horse training.
Now Prosperous has been a real gem. We are homeschooled too and Kayley has no real training with horses, but she's taught Prosperous from what she's learned in books, and that horse is so eager to please her… it's so cute! She can now get him to count, bow, rear on command, dance, side-cross and a bunch of other stuff. God really put those too together and we are so thankful for it!
Gillian Adams says
Wow. Yeah, horses are interesting creatures aren't they! Some definitely need a firm hand to remind them that they're not the "top dog."
Generally when I work with a horse, I start off tough and then as the horse listens and trusts me and I "trust" them a little more, I'm a little more gentle. I'm breaking one of our horses right now, so we're still at the tough stage with her.
Sweet! Prosperous sounds like he's a great horse – and y'all got him for a really great price! Sounds like your sister's done a great job with him! Do you still have that first horse or did y'all sell her?
The Director says
Great post. I feel bad posting such a short comment after the two long ones preceding mine, but yeah: great post. I love how you are able to turn everything back to Jesus. It's so encouraging to me. :)
Star-Dreamer says
We were having trouble with her and where we were boarding her. The original deal was that my sister would babysit sometimes for the farmer who was boarding the mare, and in the meantime her horse would get to stay at his place.
This got out of hand when the guy was having her do 8 hour babysitting days in the summer without pay, plus bailing for him without pay, and then when he started to not give me or my other siblings pay for helping him with other chores (all under the guise of the fact that he was boarding her horse, of course, and so we supposedly owed him… which wasn't right) and when he started using kayley's horse equipment for his own horses and other livestock, that's when we decided it really had gone too far. For what the guy would have had to pay us had we not had the horse at his place, we could have boarded three horses anywhere else.
Plus it basically got to the point where we couldn't do anything with the mare anymore. She never liked Kayley from the start (bit her someplace unmentionable about two weeks in, and all Kayley did was walk into the barn) We decided to just pasture her, but we couldn't move her; The guy who had originally given the mare to us said he would take care of her hooves, which he never did, and we were having trouble keeping up with how fast they were growing. It became a real disaster.
What ended up happening was that Kayley found someone who wanted to take the mare as a rescue horse, and these other people could better afford to take care of her. The horse is still at the other farmer's place, but what do you know… he's never called us back to work for him. Not that we would want to work for him. It got really bad at the end.
But at least the horse is taken care of. Kayley was so extremely worried about her; it was just getting so very bad and we didn't know how to save her. And now she seems to be alright and Kayley says it's like a huge weight was lifted off her shoulder. She's got Prosperous, and those two were meant for each other. :D