After the fairly lengthy and personally challenging video call with A squad’s leadership team I headed up to the roof of the mountainside compound we were staying with. We were roughly a week into the Race. A week into squad leading. A week into figuring this thing out.
The call was with my co-leaders, who were also on the mountain with me, and our coaches and mentor back in the States. I had felt convicted about my time spent thus far and felt like I needed to take it up a notch and really get back to the reason I was out here. All 3 squad leaders (SQL’s) split up and spent some time in prayer. I put on my “Instrumental Chill” playlist, consisting of songs by Songs of Water and City of the Sun and started talking to God.
Suffice to say, it was a pretty great time with the Father. I was jacked. Couldn’t sit still. Needed to run about. Sometimes when I feel this way, I know I need to just start moving until something catches my attention. So I grabbed my music, told everyone I would be back eventually, and took off.
I had barely gotten down a the stairs towards the little waterfall (if you could call it that, more like a spit) when I came up to the small pen of a horse named Dominguez.
I had met Dominguez before, but only in passing. I was getting a tour of the land, and he was chilling in his pen. This time I decided to linger.
At first Dominguez wasn’t necessarily interested in me hanging around. He stood towards the back of his square 8×8 pen. It was wood with slats and a small trough inside. He’s a young horse and kind of lean for what I assume a normal horse is supposed to be sized. Even though he wasn’t so interested at first, I could tell he was curious.
I started talking to him and slowly coaxing him to my side of the pen. He eventually came over and then after more coaxing he allowed me to pet him on his long horse face. Then behind the ears, then the mane, and finally he was letting me scratch all over. Every time I would let up he would poke his nose at me until I would start scratching him again.
He went from not even wanting me around to basically making me pet him as long as I would be there. Dominguez seemed like a lot of things, but mostly he seemed curious and nervous. Curious to see what was happening outside of his pen, but nervous to go out there. Due to the way he is being raised he spends almost all of his time in his little pen.
I asked God what I could learn from this horse named Dominguez. And so He helped me to realize what He had laid out in front of me.
I had asked Him earlier in the day what His vision for A squad was. And what my role in all of it was. Through Dominguez He showed me that most everyone in their spiritual walk starts out in a little pen like Dominguez. Sometimes people get put in their pen. Constrained by their circumstances and experiences into a little box or cage. But mostly we put ourselves in there. It’s easier to control. Easier to understand. We feel safe in our pen. We feel comfortable. We do what we’re told in our pen. We do what tradition dictates in our pen.
I realized that I spent a lot of my life in my pen. That I tried the once a day quiet times. The simple prayers. The community service. I never challenged it, and I never really wanted more. My faith was easy. My faith carried little weight. My faith could fit in a little 8×8 pen.
Now I’ve found myself outside the pen. Running around on the outside, being free and crazy. Figuring out new things about myself and my faith. I’ve broken a lot of the norms and traditions I thought would always apply to me, and am walking in a level of freedom and exploration I didn’t know was possible.
Especially when I was in my pen.
I think that no one can open your pen for you. No one but yourself can unlock the gate. I see Jesus hanging out in the field just outside your pen, just waiting for you to come and join Him. To see what wonders and beauty the world has to offer. Not the terrible “worldly” things, but the things He truly meant to be beautiful in the world. But He wants you to choose it. He’s not going to do it for you.
What He told me is that my role by and large these 5 months is to show A squad what it’s like outside the pen. Not to unlock the gate, not to break it down. That’s their job. But to simply show them what’s out here. What crazy awesome things there are to experience. All the incredible life there is to live once you leave your little 8×8 pen.
It was a crazy revelation. After thinking it all through I pet Dominguez a little longer, thanked him for helping teach me something, and head off to meet with the other SQL’s to tell them what I had found out.
It was a pretty great day.
I guess one of the things I learned outside of my pen is that God can teach you things through anything. You don’t have to get everything spoon fed to you from someone else, you can go out there and get it for yourself.
Try to find what your pen looks like. Maybe it’s time you unlocked and saw what was out there on the other side.
Wanna help me stay out here and find out all those things? You can! Please prayerfully consider supporting my trip. It still need around $5,000 to be fully funded for squad leading.
If you’re interested, please follow this link: https://www.adventures.org/give/donate.asp?giveto=worldrace&desc=Seth%20Powell&appeal_id=POWELLSETH
Or mail a check made out to Adventures in Missions to this address. Also, make sure you put my name in the memo line so that it gets to me.
Adventures in Missions
P.O. Box 742570
Atlanta, GA 30374-2570
