Sermon On The Mount Pics

Hey! I'm finally posting pics from Sermon On The Mount!

My dear sweet horse, who had never been ridden before... was ridden within an hour.

Lew Sterrett is an amazing trainer and pastor. He did a sermon while training Blaze. His sermon was about how God wants His believers to WANT to be with Him and WANT to do what pleases Him instead of doing things for Him because they just should or feel like they have to.

Some horse trainers train their horses that way... they just MAKE them do the things they should, while Lew works with the horses heart.

I know... some of you are thinking blah blah blah... natural horsemanship, but that's not Lew.

He believes dealing with a horse's heart begins with encouraging a horse to do the right thing through their rear end and their hips... not tugging on their halter or bridal. His method seems to be an AMAZING balance of good ol' cowboy training mixed with understanding and patience.

With natural horsemanship, a trainer might wait FOREVER to let a horse decide to do something... but that doesn't really reflect our God either... God is not passive... but He is not cruel... He is bold and corrective and yet rewarding and loving, like we should be with our horses when training.

This sermon just made me really check my heart, am I following God because I want to, do I just read my Bible because as a Christian I HAVE to?? And how about my horse... am I training him the way God would train me? Good things to think on.

Hopefully you can see the sequence of things in the pics below. Lew first addressed the crowd, then began to get Blaze's attention by sending him off anytime he wouldn't pay attention to Lew (no whip involved). Once Blaze finally hooked on and wanted to be with Lew, Lew worked on putting the saddle blanket on. After Blaze accepted that, Lew put a lariat around Blaze's cinch area and pulled it tight... as you can see Blaze reared and bucked for a while. Once he accepted that, Lew put the saddle blanket on and then the saddle and Blaze accepted it well. Then Lew worked at slowly putting pressure on Blaze's back by standing in the stir ups, once Blaze accepted that... He got on his back and after a little time, he got Blaze to move forward. Now... it wasn't all just that easy... but that explains the sequence below.