And even though he’s perhaps terribly thirsty, you can’t make him drink. Why is that a true statement? how does it remind us of ourselves? If it is our goal that the horse should drink then the important lesson here is that you can’t “make” the horse drink. Rather than succumb to our urgings and exhortations to drink, the horse prefers the smug satisfaction of knowing that despite our superior intelligence and opposable thumbs he has won! Many of us go thru life “noseless” without a nose, we decided that it would be better to cut it off than to appease the constant demands of an oxygen dependant body. My intent is to use this illustration of behavior by both horse and man as a lament of what I see as perhaps our biggest problem. Our pridefullness, our ego, our screwed up priorities and skewed perspectives. Our going thru life like the horse, so thirsty and yet unwilling to drink. Wearing blinders that prevent us not only from seeing side to side but ahead as well. We detect the stench of our dead lives and yet continue to embrace it. Life and relationships are what we make of them, circumstances are the excuses we use when we decide to quit. This is the good news, it’s good because it means that we have the ability to choose, its bad, because it nullifies many peoples only means of getting people to pay any attention whatsoever to them. Like the horse, who after refusing to drink brags about his superiority while he is dying of thirst we humans rationalise our choices through the filter of our own dis-functon and choose to remain chained to the rotting corpse that we keep smelling. that rotting corpse is us.
Seeking The Kingdom 
2 replies on “you may lead a horse to water…”
My original poem entitled “Rivers of Life” probably isn’t the best example of my work, but it seems especially applicable to this particular blog post of yours. Here it is:
RIVERS OF LIFE
It boggles my mind for me to think
that there are those who will not drink
from rivers of life that quench the soul
and help a man achieve the goal
of reconciliation dear,
both free from sin and free from fear
— a goal that any can achieve
if only he would just believe
in Living Waters from above
sent down by mercy and by love.
Oh, won’t you come
and quench your thirst?
Just die to self, and put God first.
Perhaps that’s the eternal question…why?
Why wouldn’t people accept what Christ has done for them?
The eternal answer? PRIDE!
Thanks for reading and commenting, I enjoyed your writing!