King James makes this weeks message kind of funny off the tongue - But you can figure that one out.  What I know is that all to often we blame the horse we are riding, the job we have, the unsaved boss, the poor performing employee, our spouse, our kids, even ourselves for things that are simply GOD trying to work on US!  This week, is kind of a part two from last week - talking about when Balaam beat his ass because she wouldn't go where he wanted to go....

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SHOW NOTES

 Its been 30 years

30 years of saying yes to the passion that God has placed on the inside of me to lead

See - its a journey of leading others to find their God-given purpose  

And because of that - you have this feeling on the inside - 

that it is our leadership responsibility to do eve tying in our power to help 

Others achieve their God-given purpose

Good morning, afternoon, or evening - this week was going to be a completely different direction, but after last week - I think we are going to go into part 2 of the Journey

How we approach life and issues will determine our outcome…

I was confronted with what we did “right”: last week almost immediately… 

I’ve got another story for you - - - 

 And this time I am going to brag on my kids again…

I have been reading in Numbers and was reminded yesterday about a situation with Balak and Balaam… 

Let's read it together

Go to Numbers 22

In this passage, we have a kingdom that is scared of the Nation of Israel and we have a couple of characters in this - the son of the King of the Moabites, Balak and we have Balaam the prophet (some even call him a wicked prophet) - but a prophet none the less

 The back story to what we are going to read is that in their fear the Moabites are wanting Balaam to come and speak a blessing from God over them as a people… Balaam doesn’t want to do this because God told him not to

But they go back and forth and at one point - eventually, Balaam agrees to go with Balak

BUT - - - 

22 Then God’s anger was aroused because he went, and the Angel of the Lord took His stand in the way as an adversary against him. And he was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him. 23 Now the donkey saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the way with His drawn sword in His hand, and the donkey turned aside out of the way and went into the field. So Balaam struck the donkey to turn her back onto the road. 

24 Then the Angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path between the vineyards, with a wall on this side and a wall on that side. 25 And when the donkey saw the Angel of the Lord, she pushed herself against the wall and crushed Balaam’s foot against the wall; so he struck her again. 

26 Then the Angel of the Lord went further and stood in a narrow place where there was no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left. 27 And when the donkey saw the Angel of the Lord, she lay down under Balaam; so Balaam’s anger was aroused, and he struck the donkey with his staff.

28 Then the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?”

29 And Balaam said to the donkey, “Because you have [e]abused me. I wish there were a sword in my hand, for now, I would kill you!”

30 So the donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your donkey on which you have ridden, ever since I became yours, to this day? Was I ever [f]disposed to do this to you?”

And he said, “No.”

31 Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the way with His drawn sword in His hand, and he bowed his head and fell flat on his face. 32 And the Angel of the Lord said to him, “Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out [g]to stand against you because your way is perverse[h] before Me. 33 The donkey saw Me and turned aside from Me these three times. If she had not turned aside from Me, surely I would also have killed you by now, and let her live.”

34 And Balaam said to the Angel of the Lord, “I have sinned, for I did not know You stood in the way against me. Now, therefore, if it [i]displeases You, I will turn back.”

Now there are some fun things we can say about this story - but I want to bring out a few points about this. Last week I shared about how sometimes we go through things because they are part of our journey - not because it is something bad. Sometimes we call things bad that are God working in our lives… it may feel bad for the moment, but in fact, it is part of our journey. 

Here is Balaam 

Going somewhere and God sends an angel (unseen to Balaam) to stop him

God wants to teach Balaam something important so God gets in the way of Balaam, but still gives Balaam the answer - just through a donkey - a place where Balaam didn’t expect…

Keeping that in mind - I want to share a story of what we went through last week

So Thursday we brought the two oldest girls and two of the horses to the saddle club property (about 6 miles from our place ) to work with their horses. They spent the afternoon doing whatever it is that they do with their horses and I went back to our property to work on some projects getting ready for our family vision camps…

 At some 4 pm, I head back to the property to drive the truck back and my oldest was still loading her mustang into the trailer. So I sat in the car for a little bit, but that little bit turned into an hour, then 2 hours, then 4 hours…

Still trying to load her horse into the trailer

It was getting cold, 

It was getting dark…

I would go out there and offer to help or stand out there for moral support…

But nothing was working

Now for some of you who know horses, there are several ways to do this

One of which is to force the animal onto the trailer… 

This is probably the way that I would do it, but I know that my daughter is working hard with this mustang.

Not only that, it is part of her journey and the horses' journey.  

She has worked hard on this bond with the horse and has stuck with the training that she has been doing in natural horsemanship. 

 But here we are, it is now 945 and we have been loading this horse for almost 6 hours!

I was struggling too

Not because I was tired of the horse not loading - but I could see my daughter facing a lot of things

Emotions, cold, tired, hungry…

But most difficult was watching the young lady who has been correct, right, perfect, overachiever - hitting a wall. It was a hard wall.. and I know that she probably was questioning everything she was doing… 

Plus she was failing… 

She was facing the pressures of her dad sitting out there for 6 hours

The fact that we can’t leave the horse on the property overnight alone

So many pressures for a 19-year-old to face with the standard of all that she has work3ed with this horse to build in trust and development

 Mind you - this horse was wild for 9 years of its life, and it has only been with Ellie for 4 months…

Ellies decision to not push her horse further than what was in line with her training was costing her and it was costing me, and it was costing the family - and there was no solution sight…

Yet, there was peace in me as a dad (even in my heartbreaking for her_) that God was working this for her.

 That God was allowing her to face failure, face a new level of frustration, face a new need for dependence on others… This was probably a nightmare for her!

God was sending an angel to block her way - without her seeing that it was God

She was pushing to get her horse to do what she was wanting (not striking like Balaam) but there was a bigger thing happening to her - God was working in her the fears of her life

Failing

Not being enough

And having to depend on others…

 What a lesson that was taking place

 Not only that when I called her back into the truck she had to then walk through how to solve

And if you know me - I didn’t just come in a rescue - I wanted her to use this opportunity in the middle of all those emotions to be able to think rationally about all the resources

Through discussion, we figured out a plan

We would build a small round pen around the trailer right there on the property

Go back to the camp and pick up the RV and we would stay the night at the saddle club to allow her horse to calm down and then work with her to load in the morning or all day if needed.

I couldn’t help but think of how God used the situation with Balaam to not only still work His will of blessing Israel and influencing the Moabites - but God worked in Balaam as well. 

 Normally at this point in the podcast, I break down a few points or take-homes of the situation - but today I want to do this a little differently. I want to share some insights that may help you in the middle of your situation - call them questions instead of points?

 Are allowing God to work on what HE wants to work on? One of the ways that God chooses to work on us is to see un into situations that expose our greatest fears, our greatest areas of not being surrendered to trusting HIM. Because it Is when we are facing our fears, that breakthrough happens. And in those moments - God gets to work on what he wants. I remember a dream I had where I was sitting in the doctor's waiting room. I had major stomach pain and I went to the front desk and asked for an appointment and they said gave me some dates to choose from - and instead of choosing the first date available, I put it off. Then in the next scene in this dream, I found myself sitting across the desk from the doctor - and he told me I had some conditions with my intestines that gave me two options - I could go the medicine route and live a pretty normal life with flair ups and issues with certain foods, or I could have surgery and fix the problem… 

Then I was in the operating room looking down on the doctor working on me. I was watching when they were working on my intestine when all of a sudden there was an alarm and the doctor said - oh, we need to fix that and he did something up in my spleen area. 

 Then I woke up from the dream and asked God

What does that mean?

Well, the first place was me knowing I had a problem, but putting it off - going to the right person (God - or the doctor) but putting it off until a time when was convenient for me.

The second situation was me sitting and listening to the doctor as he gave me two options, medicate or fix it. And I think we often have this opportunity with God and Ellie had that opportunity - she could have avoided what God was working on by forcing her horse to load and shunting the growth opportunity. But in this dream, I had a choice

Then the last scene was me choosing to let God (doc) work on what he wants to work on…

And the awesome thing that happened was that when I surrendered to the doc, he worked on what we knew was wrong, but then when another thing happened, he didn’t wake me up to ask permission, he just did it 

 And when we surrender to God, He can do what we know he is working on, but he can also work on everything!

Are you allowing God to work on what He wants to work on?  

The next question

Are you sticking to what He told you?  

One of the most powerful things that happened is that when faced with her greatest fears (failure and dependency) Ellie denied the temptation to throw away what she was dedicated to - natural horsemanship. If only I showed that kind of consistency and stick-to-it-ness in my life when I have opposition. 

She knows who she is, and instead of taking a shortcut and forcing her horse (and in essence shorting what God was doing in her as well), she took the route that forced HER to face her fears of failing and of depending on others.  

Are you sticking to what he told you - in life, in family, in business? I think sometimes we give up right before our breakthrough…

Last question

Are you keeping your mind right? One of the areas that I was able to bring some help to the situation was to focus Ellie on still making the best decision. A lot of times we get stuck when w are facing major emotional pieces of ourselves- and we don't stop to just process what we need to do. We stopped in the truck and walked through all the scenarios of our options, from forcing the horse to load to Ellie sleeping in the trailer to getting the RV. So many times I have rushed a decision before really taking inventory of what resources I had and what would be the best for everyone involved… I would make a rash decision on what would have cost me and not anyone else. 

 I think My oldest has that same tendency - she would have probably just wanted to stay in the cold trailer and avoided needing me to do anything. BUT, that wasn’t what she needed to do so as we walked through the scenarios we came up with what I believe was the best! Which included her sister being with us, serving her older sister, and being a big help as well. 

 Here is the best part - I think God does this for us

I think He truly knows what we need the most - and it is often dependent on how much we can trust Him with the process

So, back to the horse story -

The next morning Her horse loaded within 20 minutes of her starting, but she didn’t leave for another hour as she was wanting to truly get her horse to want to load. 

 All ended well, and I think some fears were faced that will set her up for life

I know I learned a lot in the process and found myself having to trust God too!

So what is this podcast about 

Part two of last week - sometimes what you are going through is an opportunity to grow in Christ, be exposed, be freed from fears, succeed through failing… so maybe stop cursing the situation or the donkey that you are riding and ask God to open your eyes to see if HE is standing in the way!

As you take on your leading (whether as a parent, a pastor, or an employer) with your eyes fixed on God and not the situation… you got this!

 See Leadership in my opinion means that every day you strive to be at least one step ahead,

 at least one experience in front of those you have been given the gift of leading

. It’s not a matter of being the BEST, or 

It is not a badge

It is not even being the brightest,

 it is about having the courage to lead  

It takes commitment, persistence, and patient

And it takes an everyday God experience 

I'm Benjamin Stewart

And until next time

Go lead from the edge