The other day a friend was over at the house and we were looking at the horses in the lot. He noticed the water trough was bone dry, so he followed the water hose and turned it on. We were getting ready to rope and he said we’d better get the cattle up. I told him I wanted to watch the horses drink the water. He looked at me in a puzzled way and asked, “why?”
I asked if he knew the Bible story in the book of Judges about the soldiers kneeling or laying down to get a drink of water. He said, “Nope, never heard of it.” So I told him the story.
God told Gideon to watch his soldiers drink water from a creek. The ones that flopped down on their bellies and gulped water weren’t fit to fight in the upcoming battle. The ones that drank carefully and looked around while they were getting a drink were the ones he should choose to fight. Out of 10,000 soldiers God whittled it down to 300.
My friend asked me if I applied this way of thinking to my horses. I told him yes, because a horse that can keep its wits when it’s really thirsty has to be more apt to keep its cool at a big roping where the noise is through the roof. He sort of shrugged and said, “well, that makes sense.”
I’ve been messing with horses for thirty years. I was taught this Bible story I think when I was in the fifth grade. For some reason, I’ve always remembered it anytime a horse is drinking water. Now, I’m not saying it has worked every single time I picked a horse out to buy, but it’s another thing I watch when I’m picking out a horse to bring home. I look for athleticism, but any horse has to have a good brain as well.
Sure, I’ve had horses buck me off and cheat me at a roping or rodeo. But- over the years I’ve always been fairly well mounted. I’ve certainly seen some horses that I wouldn’t spend my money to buy feed for them. So far, I’ve been able to avoid the absolute idiot horses. The ones that paw at the trailer or nicker all the time. The ones that look for every way possible to cheat their rider. Those type don’t stay at my house for long.
Maybe it’s just I like listening to a horse drink water, it is kind of a calming sound to me. I think when Gideon picked those 300 men out of 10,000 based on how they drank from a creek, the others that got rejected probably scoffed at the idea and thought it was stupid. I bet there were plenty of people that didn’t like being sifted for how they got a drink of water in the desert.
The 300 soldiers Gideon picked totally annihilated their enemies. I bet God likes to watch horses drink too.
James Lockhart lives near the Kiamichi mountains in southeast Oklahoma. He writes cowboy stories and fools with cows and horses.
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