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Kim Meeder: And in the aftermath of that night, as I waved at her and her tail lights went down the driveway, the Lord allowed me to see His perspective, that my tragedy was needed to stop her tragedy. This is the wild perspective of our God.
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John Fuller: That is Kim Meeder, and she joins us once again on Focus on the Family. Thanks for tuning in. I’m John Fuller, and your host is Focus president and author Jim Daly.
Jim Daly: John, I don’t know where to start today. Because last time, man, it was just full throttle on knowing the heart of God for you and what He intends for you and how He wants to walk alongside you and equip you and power you to, uh, really do His bidding, to help people know who He is and to be there for people, to love on people, so that they can open their crusty hearts that, uh, this world has placed around them. And it was powerful. If you missed it, download it. Call us. We’ll get it into your hands. Don’t worry about the how. We’ll get it to you because it is that good, and you really need that affirmation of God’s heart for you. Um, I’m reminded of the verse in Jeremiah 29:13, “You will seek me and find me.” He- he’s not saying you’re going to seek me and I’m going to hide from you. When you seek me, you’re going to find me when you seek me with your whole heart. That’s the thing. Not half-hearted, not- not a little game, but when you seek God usually out of sorrow, out of being crushed, that is where the Lord finds the willing soul, because you’re all in. It is a wholehearted effort at that point. In your pain, you’re saying, God, are you there? I’ve heard that testimony so many times, and you might be in that place today. Stick with us. Our guest, Kim Meeder, I think she’ll show you a side of God’s heart, the wild part of God’s heart, that is all for you.
John: Yeah, and Kim, uh, is well known to many in our audience, but she and her husband started Crystal Peaks Youth Ranch in the Pacific Northwest. They rescue abused and neglected and hurting horses and, in a beautiful way, they pair them with children who have similar backgrounds. And w- what results, uh, come out of that is just astounding and amazing. And Kim is a perennial best-seller, if you will, here at Focus, and we encourage you, as Jim said, to get a CD of the past conversation and other resources featuring Kim. The starting point is focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.
Jim: Kim, welcome back to the program. So good to have you here.
Kim: Thank you for having me back.
Jim: It’s like the, uh, studio is lit up. (Laughs) But le- let’s pick up.
Kim: Yes.
Jim: The listeners that are joining for the next day, uh, they are with us. Those that did not listen last time, I’ve got to give just that quick recap. You encountered this woman at a Goodwill. She was having, obviously, a bad day, and maybe every day was a bad day for her. She had been in your face, uh, in everybody’s face just, are- “Did you get what you needed,” and all that. And you beautifully displayed the love of Christ to her, and it brought her to her spiritual knees to where it ended up in a hug. And again, if you missed this story, go back and hear it because it was a beautiful expression of God’s love for this woman. So often, Kim, we don’t have the patience, we don’t have the time, we don’t have the perspective to hear the spirit of God.
Kim: Mm-hmm.
Jim: How do you hear the heart of God so clearly that way?
Kim: I am learning to listen. I’ve lived so much of my life on autopilot, thinking I already know how to do all these things and not asking Him into every detail of my life.
Jim: Mm-hmm. Right.
Kim: I’m learning the- the power of verses like 1 John 2:27. It says that, since we have the Holy Spirit, we don’t need anyone to teach us what to do. He will teach us everything we need to know, and what He teaches is true. And so Kim, listen, listen, listen. He is teaching all the time, and I’ve lived so much of my life not listening and I’m just learning.
Jim: Yeah. When you, uh, complete the story of Angel, this clerk at Goodwill, uh, she engaged you. I mean, you have stayed in touch with her. You’ve invited her out to the ranch to meet the horse, Alula, we talked about last time too.
Kim: Right. Correct.
Jim: Um, describe that particular instance and where that’s at in the process, and then maybe share a story where you’ve seen God use the horse dramatically in some of the children that you work with.
Kim: This is, really, with Angel coming to the ranch, is one of those dramatic experiences. This young woman shared with me that, as a child, she saw her mother kill herself right in front of her, and her life was caved in ever since. She never worked through that, and she was living in devastation in front of everyone, and-
Jim: She was wounded and striking back at everyone, it sounded like.
Kim: Right. Right. And then I don’t know what to do with these broken pieces of my life, and I’m being crushed and I don’t know where to turn or where to go. And as I shared the love of Christ with her, this woman came over a counter on her knees and dove into a hug that was waiting for her, she was that desperate for love. And in the aftermath, I shared with her, “Honey, I have a horse that I’d like you to meet, and your stories are very similar. This horse could not stop the destruction of the one that she loved the most, her master, her owner. Her best friend died right in front of her and she’s been grieving ever since. I would like for you to come to my ranch and spend some time with this horse. Can you do that?” And then she said in this very soft voice, a woman who had just yelled in my face, “Oh, I would love that so much.” And to her credit, she did come and she did spend time with this little broken horse, reaching out to a little broken woman. And as only Jesus Christ can, He poured out understanding and healing and hope in both of their lives as they had walked through a very similar encounter, and that healing is ongoing. The story is still continuing as we speak.
Jim: Yeah, and that’s a beautiful place for people to pray for Angel and for her to have a full embrace of the knowledge of Christ. I love that, and I love the fact that it’s not complete. It’s not all button-down. That’s part of life too.
Kim: Right.
Jim: You know, God’s plan, is- there’s a process there for her, for each one of us-
Kim: Right.
Jim: … And that’s part of it. You have a story also about… I think it’s Nathan is his name. I want to hear that one too because that’s a completed, more of a completed story.
Kim: Oh my goodness.
Jim: What happened with little Nathan, this boy?
Kim: Nathan, I was invited to come and speak at a university back east, and part of that speaking bundle was to go to a ranch and give a demonstration of what they were terming equine therapy. And they put me with a child who was so devastated by his life, that his break went toward violence. This young man, I believe that he was 11 at the time, and he had broken bones in his therapist’s face and torso. He bent toward violence and they… When I went out to spend some time with him, I heard his therapist say, “Man, good luck. He’s all yours.” And so I went over, and he was standing next to an arena wall. And as I approached him, I said, “Hey, what’s your name?” And he literally growled at me, and he turned around and he kicked the wall. And so I just, um… I just leaned against the wall next to him. And in a few moments, three horses were released into the arena, and two stood together, one stood alone. And so I just kind of slid down the wall to make myself smaller and less adult, and I started to narrate to him, “Wow, those two horses over there are friends, but look at the horse that’s standing alone. She’s really afraid and she’s alone and she doesn’t belong anywhere, and her heart’s really sad. I know how that feels.” And as I’m narrating to him what I’m seeing, I’m also telling him about himself. And this little mad dude turns around and he- he literally had made me go away by putting his hands over his eyes. And I could see his hands drop down, and he was just holding them in front of his chest as he’s looking at this really sad mare. And I told him, I said, “You know what? My name’s Kim. What’s your name?” He said, “It’s Nathan.” And I said, “Nathan, see how her head is down? She’s looking right at the ground. She’s really, really sad, and I know how that feels, and I don’t want her to feel like that for another minute. I want to go over and try to make her happy. I want to- her to know that she is loved, because I know when I was really sad in my life and when things were really hard, somebody helped me know the love of Christ, and that changed everything. You want to go with me?” And he wouldn’t look at me, but he just kind of nodded, like, yeah, I think I want to do that. So we went over, and the mare started to move away. And I said, “Do you see that? She’s rejecting us before we can reject her. She’s so sad.” And so I stepped in front of her, and in obedient, she stopped and rubbed her face, and I’m just cupping her jaws. And without telling him, this little broken boy reaches forward and he just puts his bare hand on her side, and I said, “Just make circles.” And then I said, “Let’s give her a gift she can’t give herself. Horses that love each other, they scratch each other’s backs because they can’t do that. Let’s give her a good gift, so let’s scratch her back.” And as we started to scratch her back, you could see her just turn her head in this, oh my gosh, that feels so good. And she was making a- a very funny face.
Jim: (Laughs) Right.
Kim: And I said, “Nathan, look at her face. That feels so good. More, more, more. We can’t love her enough.” And then, I said, “Nathan, quick. Follow me,” and I jumped away. And I said, “Quick, we have to hide,” and I just knelt down on the arena floor, and he looked at me like, are you just a crazy lady? But he was starting to smile, like I think I’m liking you now. And so we just hunkered down on the arena floor, and then all of a sudden, we could hear steps as the mare was coming to us. And then she kind of put her head down between us and I said, “Check that out. When we came here, she was so sad, she wanted to leave, but now she’s coming to you because you gave her such a good gift of love. Let’s just give her more and more and more.” And we played the scratch and hide game over and over and over until, now, the mare is following us everywhere. And pretty soon, I got him up on her back, and he’s scratching her shoulders and his- her neck, and the… Horses are big. They need love everywhere. And now he’s sitting backwards and scratching as far as he can reach, down both of her hind legs. And- and pretty soon, this little dude is now starting to reach for me with both arms as I’m giving him high-fives. And we went and got a saddle and, pretty soon, he’s trotting figure eights on this horse, and- and we’re laughing and he’s doing his best Superman impressions on a horse. And I’m high-fiving him, and I can hear his therapist behind me saying, “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it.” And that’s why we don’t see. When we choose not to believe that God can crash through the barriers of pain. His love knows no barrier. Our job isn’t to understand how He’s going to do it. Our job is to release the tide of His love through us. This little dude’s trotting around and he’s laughing and reaching for me. And he pulled his helmet off after he got off, and I slicked his hair up in like a Superman dorkiness, and- and this little dude just gave me the- gave the horse a giant hug and then he just hugged me with both arms and he wouldn’t let go. That is the wild love of our God being released. We don’t have to understand how He’s going to break through. Our job, our calling, our great commission is to release the torrent of His unstoppable love and stand back and watch our wild God redeem.
Jim: Kim, there’s so many applications on this. My mind is just, phyoosh, going through so much here. It is, it’s everything you just said. But let me ask you this with the body of Christ, because I don’t know why, but many people don’t experience the Lord the way you’re describing. We’ve become a people of rules, and are we measuring up. We almost become that wounded boy as well, because we’re feeling unworthy of God’s love. We’re not good enough. Speak to the believing community about knowing what God means by unconditional love, to free you up to be that example that you were to that boy, to be in tune with what the Lord is doing in that moment. Does that make sense?
Kim: It does. And how can we read God’s Word when Jesus Himself says, “My greatest commandment is to love God first and love each other and then share that love. That’s my greatest commandment.” He said it all through the gospels over and over and over. How can we cherry-pick around that? And I think that He calls us to come to Him as a child, in childlike faith, not childish. We learn childish as we get older and we move away from that little girl, that little boy that’s just reaching for Jesus all day long, into those teenage years of, oh, well don’t you know, I think I know more than you and I don’t need to do that. And we- we kind of fall into that pit of pride and self-condemnation and self-justification, and as long as we justify why we are in a painful place, why we are where we are, we will remain where we are until we stand before Him.
Jim: Yes.
Kim: Our job isn’t to defend ourselves. That’s Jesus’ job. Our job is to reflect everything that Jesus is by pouring out the volume of His love, and that’s what transforms the world and the environment around us. It is a weapon of warfare that the enemy has no defense against. You and I just get to fire away arrows that go straight into the heart where an individual can’t- they can’t pull them out. They can’t unhear love. They can’t unexperience love. That arrow has gone in. In God’s words, says in Isaiah 55, “Don’t you know, my Word, my love, my hope, all that I am never returns to me void without doing what I want it to.” That’s not your job, Kim. Your job isn’t to figure it out or even to see it. Your job is to fire away all my love, and then stand back and watch what only I can do in the heart of another.
Jim: In the book that you’ve written here, Encountering Our Wild God, you, uh, take the metaphor of an avalanche and compare that to God and- and what He teaches us about perspective. What’s the connection?
Kim: Oh, man. The connection is that I am a woman of the wilderness, and I have seen many avalanches. And from a safe distance, they’re beautiful, but beautiful when you’re caught in them, and life is like that. All of a sudden, what seems serene and beautiful and peaceful, this giant crack forms, and everything just falls in this tumbling melee of confusion and cataclysm and- and we just keep falling and tumbling and we think we’re going to die. And as this tails out at the bottom of a chasm, our first thought is, I’m alive, I’m alive. And often, in that narrow perspective, our first question is, why God? Why? Why have you allowed this to happen in my life? I thought you were love. I thought you loved me. I thought you loved my family. Why God? Why? I don’t understand. Senseless pain only happens on this side of Heaven. Before our God, every pain has sense. He doesn’t ask us to understand the why. He only asks us to trust Him for it. I have tried to write this out in an encounter in this new book where I… This is a long story, but the very short version is, I have a rescue ranch. I had rescued some horses. One of these horses had a cataclysmic wreck that I saw her front leg twisted backward. Her leg was broken, a baby, a baby. And I had to go and make that call that no one wants to make, to call a vet to come and end a life that was entrusted into my care. And- and I was just grieving. Why, God? Why? This is an innocent horse. It’s a- she’s a baby. She’s a baby. This makes no sense. God, it makes no sense. And as the vet came, um, this is a long story, but the horse’s leg turned around. I’ve… She started putting weight on it, she started taking steps. We had prayed over this baby before the vet came, and I’m having this juxtaposed in my mind that, from my flesh, that Kim, you have seen horses with compound fractures stand on a leg that’s violently broken. It’s how they were wired. They don’t know how to stand any other way. And my spirit’s saying, you asked the living God to come and heal. Now, walk this out. And as the vet did a thorough examination, her conclusion was, this horse’s leg must have been dislocated, and as you moved her to a safe location, it was jostled back into place. I released all my staff. It was late on a Sunday night. And as I was talking to the vet on call, a woman I passively knew and respected very much, that’s when the Holy Spirit highlighted the vet. Kim, she’s not okay. This is not about the horse. This is about the vet. And as I pursued her, I asked her, “Honey, are you okay?” And she brushed it off. You know, the vet on call, no sleep, and-
Jim: Right.
Kim: And- and I pursued her further, and I said, “Honey, are you all right?” And she’s putting all her gear away, and I can see her hands starting to shake. Everything’s put away. She doesn’t know what to do with her hands, and they’re like butterflies that just have nowhere to land, and I don’t know what to do. And now you see me, and- and I’m breaking right in front of you, and she just cracked. And the soul-wrenching moans and groans and just sobbing, racking tears. All I did was turn her around, and we just sat on the tailgate and she moaned and mourned and wept for about 45 minutes until finally, she was just able to whisper, “I’ve much such a mess of my life.” And as she started to speak to me, it was the visual of the avalanche, this beautiful life cracking and everything just tumbling in this roaring unstoppable flood, destroying everything in its path. And now she was in a broken pile at the bottom of the chasm, saying, “Why? Why? Why?” And as she was pouring out her heart, just pieces of her life were raining down all around us like broken snow. And she finally… I could see her parting her lips, and then huge tears coming down. There was more. We were getting very close to the break. And finally, she said… she said that, “It occurred to me that the only way to make my pain and my suffering stop was to make my life stop. And when you called me, I was, uh… I was… I was holding a gun to my head, and I was trying to pull the trigger. Never in all my life have I needed someone to call me more, and then you did. And then you did. Never have I needed help more than right now.” And in the darkness, sitting on the tailgate of a veterinary truck, hope was introduced to the hopeless. And in the aftermath of that night, as I waved at her and her tail lights went down the driveway, the Lord allowed me to see His perspective, that my tragedy was needed to stop her tragedy. This is the wild perspective of our God.
Jim: Yeah.
Kim: And if we will trust Him enough to walk through the why, this is where we will see that release of the power of His all-knowing presence and love and redemption pour out into what is our cataclysm. Will you trust me to not be your light at the end of the tunnel? I’m your light in the tunnel with you. Beloved, walk with me. I’ve got this. There’s always been a plan. Trust me for it.
Jim: Think of that all the way back to when you were nine years old and you could not see the whole picture, grasping at the dirt in that orchard, calling out to Jesus who you didn’t really know much about. He’s got that whole perspective. He knows you’re going to be with the vet who is thinking of ending her life all those years later. And that… to me, that is God. And you know, the other thing, Kim, that I so love about your- your expression, every time you’re talking about engaging somebody, it’s the Holy Spirit saying, “Pursue.”
Kim: Yes.
Jim: And I love that word. It didn’t go without notice on me. It’s God’s verb for Him and for us as followers.
Kim: Correct.
Jim: Pursue them. And we need to be more encouraged as the body of Christ to be courageous enough to pursue people, and typically it’s people that don’t know Him. Be comfortable in that. Do the pursuit. Trust God for the wild outcome. And you have brought so many examples these last two days, man. All I can say is thank you. Thank you for being so faithful to your commitment to Christ, you orphan girl. But God has used that pain, and as an orphan boy, I get it and I love it, and I’m challenged by it, just to say, “Lord, use me.” and I hope you, the listener, are challenged in that same way. Get up everyday saying, “Lord, help me to pursue those around me.”
Kim: Correct.
Jim: And, uh, your book is a great place to start. Encountering Our Wild God: Ways to Experience His Untamable Presence Every Day, I love it. Thanks for being with us.
Kim: Thank you. It- as always, it’s just a joy to be here at Focus on the Family with two of my dearest brothers.
Jim: (Laughs). Oh, it’s so good.
John: Kim Meeder always brings such great joy to us, uh, when she joins us here at Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. It’s easy to understand why she’s such a popular guest with our listeners.
Jim: She’s that kind of person you want to sit around a fire with and just start talking, and she will be your best friend. You will be so intrigued as she shares how God has, um, acted in her life and come alongside her and how he uses Kim’s gifts to love horses, but also most importantly to love people through that. I mean, it is amazing and inspiring. Uh, you know, here at Focus on the Family, we want to help families heal and to thrive in Christ. That’s what we’re doing every day. It’s why we offer so many great resources, whether you’re looking for marriage or parenting or helping in the pro-life area or foster families. Whatever you’re doing, we’re here to help you. In fact, we’ve put together a collection of Kim’s episodes that you won’t want to miss. It puts a smile on your face. It really does me. It’s full of her breathtaking stories and powerful moments that will grip you, encourage you and inspire you. Best of all, it’s absolutely free to download. You can find out more details at our website. We also have Kim’s terrific book, Encountering Our Wild God. We’d love to put that into your hands with a, a generous donation to the ministry at Focus. Why are we doing that? So you can be part of helping others in the name of Christ. And when you give any amount today, we’ll send it as our way of saying thank you.
John: Yeah. Donate and request Kim’s book when you call 800, the letter A in the word FAMILY, 800-232-6459. And please know, we have that fantastic audio collection available for you for free, uh, over three hours of Kim telling stories and sharing insights about God’s heart. You’ll hear the story of her parents’ tragic deaths and how God walked her through that emotional time, uh, the way that God has used horses, uh, to impact children’s lives, uh, people she’s met and, uh, incredible life-changing stories. All of this is free. It’s over three hours of Kim Meeder, uh, here on this show. You’ll find the details at our website, and that’s focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. Well, have a wonderful weekend, uh, with your family and your church family. And plan to join us on Monday, as we’ll hear from Joni Eareckson Tada, sharing lessons she’s learned through ongoing physical suffering.
Joni Eareckson Tada: When we obey God, when we become Holy as He is Holy, it’s like He opens up the floodgates of Heaven and joy comes cascading down, spilling up and splashing out of our hearts and rushing out to others in streams of encouragement.
John: Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller, inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.
