About four weeks into working with Diesel, I realized he’d never been taught to back up on command. My trainer showed me on several occasions how to teach D and then actually used him to teach his 4-H kids at the highschool. I still couldn’t get the desired response from Diesel and I could feel the doubt creeping in…can I really do this? Am I capable of teaching him the things he needs to be successful? Do I have the guts to stick this out and help him have an abundantly joyful life?
One afternoon I was out working in the round pen. J and the kids were down with me, watching, waiting…one of the high school students, L, came up and started asking about Diesel. J answered her questions and she made a comment that I was struggling to get Diesel to listen to me when I attempted to stop him and back him up. She noticed that I was flustered and asked if she could try. Well, heck, who am I to say no? She began talking to me as she walked D around the pen, telling me about field days she’d attended, how her grandfather taught her how to jump on a horse and hold on, how he’d taught her that sometimes what we see and what we want take time and patience. Then, she stopped. She stopped moving, stopped talking…and Diesel stopped. He didn’t push past her and then stop, he didn’t nudge with that big shoulder of his…he just stopped.
L would walk a little and then stop and each time, Diesel got quicker at his own stop. She never had to say a word, never had to correct an undesired behavior, he just responded to her. I realized something at that very moment.
You see, I’d set expectations for Diesel and ultimately myself. Expectations that neither of us were going to be able to meet because I was setting us up for failure. What L could see, that I couldn’t see, is that D needed time and space. He needed to be able to think about the desired behavior and he needed the space to get it correct.
After a few minutes, L had done what I’d been working on for days. She turned, loved on him and then proceeded to work on backing up. She jiggled the lead rope and he immediately took a step back. She let him lick and chew for a minute and then jiggled again…two steps back. Again..the next time three steps back. L created a safe space for him to learn, to make a choice about his behavior and to achieve.
Isn’t that how God works? He guides us, teaches us, gives us the tools we need and then gives us space to learn and to choose. We set expectations for ourselves and others and then are frustrated or disappointed when our expectations aren’t met. We often fail to give others the space to learn and choose…we even do that to ourselves.
As a culture, we forget that not everything is instant gratification. We forget that our expectations of others and of ourselves are self-imposed. Are the expectations we’re setting based on what God says or what society says? Are we setting achievable expectations or are we consistently setting ourselves and others up to fail because we are prioritizing the wrong thing?
What L gave me and Diesel that afternoon in the round pen was a clearer understanding of what it would take to make this thing work…time and patience. Walking into the round pen each day with no expectation other than loving and being loved. Even while working, celebrating even the tiniest accomplishment, acknowledging when something isn’t right and then moving forward.
What would happen, friends, if we began to truly live our lives this way? Loving people with no expectation of who they should be, what they should be, what place they will or won’t have in our world? What if we chose to love unconditionally, the way the Father loves us? What would our culture, our world, our town, our FAMILIES look like if we did away with the expectations and simply chose to see others through His eyes and love like Jesus did?
I know I say this often and I’ll probably continue to say it until I’m older and gray-er. Ha.
The Navajo teach me more than I’ll ever teach them…
Love without expectation is my heart’s desire…all because of a tiny Navajo girl and because God made a horse…
Beautiful Harvest Project 