Learning about God through Dressage By Christine Vandenbrink

For those of you who don’t know, Dressage, (rhymes with the word massage) is “the training of the horse through gymnastics to achieve the balance, lightness, and engagement that can be found in horses in nature.”* First practiced by the ancient Greeks and then the Romans, dressage was used in training horses for battle. During the Renaissance, dressage was brought back into existence at The School of Versailles, the French Court of equitation, promoted greatly by Louis XIV.
The key to dressage and a lot of other types of riding is to get your horse moving from behind, back to front. As Gragorio Billikopf Encina says, “Without forward impulsion the horse cannot be molded… As the horse engages the hindquarter and the front becomes lighter, the horse’s head can also fall in the right frame.”
When I started riding my lesson horse, Kay lee, she was used to being ridden with her head up. She hadn’t used her neck muscles much before at all. So, when I asked her to come from behind and put her head down into a frame, she couldn’t do it for long. It hurt. She wasn’t used to using those muscles and she kept throwing her head back up and tried to speed out of the work. My riding instructor just told me to keep asking. I was taught to hold a steady contact with my horse, and if she wanted to fight she would be pulling on herself.
            “Let her fight it out with herself. She’ll figure it out eventually.”
And she did. Eventually she found that it was easier to accept the bit. I began to see a strong connection between the way I was riding Kay lee and the way God was working in me.
At that time in my life it felt like God was pushing me, driving me forward and yet at the same time, He was holding me back. He was asking me for contentment yet sometimes the tears, the pain and the trials felt like too much. They hurt. Yet I had hope that it was all coming to something. I had to believe that He was and is building up my spiritual muscle; He has a purpose, just like I had a purpose in riding and training my horse. Paul says, in Romans 5, “… not only so, but we rejoice in our sufferings, for we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character, and character, hope…”
Sometimes I struggled, but God would just wait out my struggles and then ask again. I would find too that it was easier to follow His leading than resist it – I would find that it was easier to accept the bit. I knew ultimately, God wanted what was best for me. If I fought I would be fighting against myself.
I learned to see that and realize that my trials - the difficult times, the days of loneliness- were just what He brought into my life so that I would go to Him. He was calling me. He wanted me to seek Him out, trust Him, and take my concerns to Him.
Sue Morris says, “An expression that was very common in Germany in the past and that I haven’t heard in a long time is that the horse has to learn to trust the rider’s hands... the same thing applies to the seat and legs… The horse has to trust especially the rider’s seat not to drop like a rock onto his back every stride in the trot… A horse will actively seek Contact with your hands when he knows he can trust them.” God is kind and loving and gentle, and we must learn to trust Him and know that He wants what is best for us.
Our goal should be that we are in tune with the Master, in tune with His will. His desires are to become our desires. Ultimately, God’s will is for our greater good, for our eternal security. Just as the horse needs to be driven against that contact, that pressure of the bit, just as the horse needs to have impulsion to be molded, we need to be pushed and driven to be molded as well. “Everyone who competes in the games (horses included) goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.” (1 Corinthians 10:13)