Posts Tagged ‘leadership’

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to improve their relationships with others with a more gentle spirit, yet leading spirit!  There are some great life lessons to learn out of this book about leadership, trust and relationships.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I first recieved signed up to review this book.  I love watching the dog whisper and some thought this might be similar and that kind of interesting.  I was delighted with this book.   It is more than just for horse lovers! (though I would consider myself that as well!)

It gave me some interesting thoughts to ponder and made me think a whole lot about how I react to people (and animals).    If you looked into my copy you’ll find it marked with a lot of yellow from all the stuff I’ve gleaned out of it!  (Watch for some in my quotes section!)

I love how Lew related the horses to people and how to lead and guide them to Christ; how gentleness can go a long way.  He taught me a lot in this book and I enjoyed sitting in the quiet soaking it in.  The basics of the book is to give insight about how relationships work and the importance of having trust with one another and listening to each other.

He breaks it down into two categories.  The “want to” horses, and the “have to” horses.  The “want to” horses do it because their hearts have learned how to desire it and the “have to” horses do it because they’ve been forced into submission.  I really could relate to it and understand — how many times I’ve made me children be the “have to” instead of  helping them desire it.  Or how many times I’ve been the “have to” and didn’t understand really why I was doing something.

One of the most profound statements I read in the book was “Nobody can pretend as well as professional Christians.  Behind every “bless your heart” were hurt feelings that no one wanted to or knew how to talk about.” That sure made me think of a lot of past instances in my life and it hurt because it’s so true,  He wasn’t saying it to be derogetory — quite the opposite.  We get good at hiding our true feelings sometimes and it’s easy to put on a “show” when you’re always in the spotlight, while inside you’re dying.  I could relate to this so well because I remember a time in my life when I was fully involved in ministry yet our marriage was falling apart and nobody knew… how could they?  We put on a great front for people to see.

As well as people relationships, being a new “farmer” or  pretend farmer lol, it gave  me a lot to think about regarding horses since I’m interested in that – though that is not the main intention of this book.  It made me realize they are a lot smarter than I ever thought they were (and dangerous!).

check out the video from Sermon on The Mount

Sample Sermon on the Mount from Miracle Mountain Ranch on Vimeo.

Want to know what others think?  check out the rest of the Litfuse tour:   http://ow.ly/169ym

Check out Dr. Lew Sterrett’s  website: http://www.sermononthemount.org/

** This was a complimentary review copy!