The Free Stuff

The Free Stuff

Trust me: you appear a bit out of place when you attend a horsemanship clinic with no horse—but no matter. I’d watched a horse whisperer do his magic before and written about it in my book The Beautiful Ache. I found the whole thing so moving and instructive that several years later, I wanted to see it again. Thanks to the storytelling and teaching skills of this particular horseman, I came away with my trusty Moleskine brimming with relational truisms.

One comment in particular rang like a bell for me. The trainer said, “The real measure of a horse is not what it gives you when you ask for it—it’s what it gives you for free. Your job is to allow it and receive it.” He was describing a relationship of trust that offered more than rote obedience or technique or hyperattentive rule keeping. One that included the possibility of amazement, fluid collaboration, and even surprise.

As a former champion rule keeper, I’ve been far too satisfied with my own outward compliance. I’ve hidden my heart (as if I could!) from God when I believed all he really wanted was for me to mind him. But that kind of relationship isn’t what satisfies him, any more than it satisfies me. It’s the free stuff that tells our story: it’s the moments I steal to be with him, just because. It’s the prayer breathed on the fly for the person he’s just brought to mind. It’s getting lost in his Word because it’s just so beautiful and good. And it’s lying down at night glad for another sweet day in his care, and telling him so. That’s the free stuff.

In my relationship with my heavenly Father, and in every other relationship in my life, it’s the free stuff that spells the difference between good and great. And it’s the free stuff that binds us in the best way, as I respond to his endless grace with more love, over and over again.

I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. . . . Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; our God is merciful. The LORD preserves the simple; when I was brought low, he saved me. Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.

Psalm 116:1, 5-7, ESV