If you aren’t familiar with that story in the Bible, I’ll give you the Readers Digest version.

This dude Balaam would either put blessings on, or curse people, whatever was most profitable for him.  The king of Moab wanted Balaam to go and curse the people of Israel and was willing to pay him big time.  So Balaam saddled up his donkey and went down the road to do the job.  God told him not to do this.  He didn’t listen, so God sent the angel of the Lord to stand in the road to block his way.  The donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand.  The donkey bolted off the road into a field, but Balaam beat it and turned it back onto the road.  This continues a little and the donkey just laid down.  In a fit of rage Balaam beat the donkey with his staff.  Then God gave the donkey a human voice.  The donkey questioned Balaam as to why he had beaten him three times.  Balaam told him if he had a sword he would have killed him.  And the conversation goes on until the angel of the Lord confronts Balaam.

So this one old horse that I’ve had here for years, and has been a perfect gentleman, starts to balk when walking up the isle way between two pastures to the barn.  Stopping, snorting and flying backwards.  This has been getting progressively worse over the last several weeks.  I figured that he was getting cataracts, because of his age, and didn’t think too much about it.  Just made adjustments to my leading him.  Then the other afternoon when I was trying to get him up to the barn before a storm, he froze.  I looked at him and said “what is your deal?  Are you Balaams donkey and is there an angel from the Lord in your path?  What!!?”  It started to pour and lightening was hitting at this point.  He ran back to the pasture and I ran back to the barn and watched him race around the pasture.  I felt bad and went back down and I got him into the barn.  It didn’t matter if I walked him with another horse or not.  I have been walking him with another horse, on and off, over the years.  So for the last week I’ve been taking him out through the gate and letting him walk up by himself.  Of course I would have to encourage him to go to the barn instead of turning himself around and running back to the pasture.  Over the course of the week he started to calm down.

I’m now walking him down with or without another horse.  He’s back to being the old horse I knew.  He probably has cataracts, but why the sudden panic he was facing?  What changed in his eyes that he is now normal again?

The next time Myra comes I may remember to ask her about him, or I may forget.  It’s just so odd.  He wasn’t looking at one particular thing, just around and snorting.  Was there something in the air?  A sound that he heard and I didn’t?  Or perhaps the angel of the Lord standing there in the isle way.  Got me by the wahoo.