24/10/2025
This afternoon, I found myself wishing I’d remembered to grab a pair of hobbles so I could hobble my horse.
Hobbles are a sometimes controversial tool, whereby you “hobble” a horse’s front legs, with enough slack between the two that he can stand comfortably, but not so much that he can take any large strides, thus keeping him in a small area, even without a fence or standing tied (so long as he is trained to them…otherwise they just go rabbit hopping across the prairie and you’re stuck walking.)
I could write you a treatise on why I think it’s actually imperative that a horse at least know how to stand hobbled, but that’s not the point. The point is that I think hobbles are often misunderstood because they are a bit paradoxical, because to me they represent both security and freedom.
Security, because the hobbles say “stand just here. This is your place in the world. You are safe here. You are under my care and I will protect you. Don’t worry.” Freedom, because they also say “you need not stand tied with your nose to the fence; no, move, eat, and enjoy your autonomy, and your security.”
And isn’t God’s law much the same? Oh, it sounds overbearing, perhaps cruel, even, at first glance. But like hobbles, when we begin to dig deeper, and are appropriately trained to it, the law becomes a gift; security that says “this is the boundary. This is your place in the world. This is how you move through it peacefully” and also freedom, because it does, indeed, say “move. Enjoy the things within the boundary. And enjoy the security that living within the law brings.”