Last October, I got to experience an answered prayer-
“God, please help me find a horse.”
I was specifically asking to find one of the wild horses currently roaming across the uninhabited island where my family had just been dropped off. We bought tickets to the “Shackleford Wild Horse and Shelling Safari,” which included a 20 minute ferry ride to Shackleford Banks on the Cape Lookout National Seashore in North Carolina. The landscape of the undeveloped island is complete with hilly sand dunes, salt marshes, and thick forests that have been the home of the feral Banker ponies for over 400 years. When we bought our tickets, the safari guide explained that we could either go straight to the beaches to hunt seashells, or follow them for a tour across the island where they would hopefully find some horses for us to observe.
My family is filled with a bunch of hardcore shellers, so they had only one goal for this trip: to fill multiple tote bags with as many seashells as they could physically carry. I still have a ten pound bag of seashells from our last trip to the island, so I was more excited for a possible wild horse sighting. But since I wanted the group to stick together, I decided to follow after my family even though my gaze kept going to the hilly dunes where I just knew the horses were hiding.
When I was younger, my favorite thing was to go on adventures in the woods behind my house. In those early days of pretending, I was Sacagawea trying to survive the elements as I traversed over fallen trees and gathered up any forest treasures I discovered along the way. As I was making my way across the shores of the island, I started to feel that same tug to go explore. It had me climbing up and down the sand dunes, walking along the same narrow ridges the horses use with nothing but the sandals on my feet and an empty lemonade bucket I brought for shells.
After climbing up to the crest of a particularly high dune, I pulled out my phone to record a video for my friend to show her the view, and to also complain about the multiple prickly pear barbs I’d plucked from my feet. As I was dramatically saying, “That’s the price you pay for being an adventurer,” my eyes finally tracked some movement farther into the island. Just a few football fields away, a horse was meandering beneath the limbs of a sprawling live oak tree.
Needing a closer look, I scrambled up and down the sandy dunes between us as quickly as I could before the horse decided to move on elsewhere. I kept going until I was about 100 yards away. That was when I discovered two other horses nonchalantly grazing on the tall grass around them. Taking extra care not to disturb them, I quietly sat down and watched.
They were just having an afternoon snack – but I sat there with a huge smile on my face, completely captivated by seeing something so beautiful and wild up close. With the midday sun shining down, I welcomed the cooling relief of the gentle breeze flowing around us. The only sounds present were the distant crashing waves and some occasional chuffing from the horses. A sense of peace settled over me as my heart swelled with gratitude. God had led me to this place and allowed me to behold something even better than His beautiful Creation: His presence.
And we all, with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:18
To behold is to observe with intention. It’s an invitation to behold His beauty, not through passive observation but active engagement in the moment we’re sharing with Him. This can be through silence, prayer, singing, writing, drawing…however you are led to worship! As I sat watching the horses, all I could do was think about how God knew that I only wanted a glance at a horse and yet He had brought me even closer. He didn’t stop at proximity – getting to experience tracking the horses reminded me of the little girl that loved to explore her backyard. Seeing those horses that day is a memory that will remain a personal testament that I am seen, loved, and intimately known by the same God who created all of the beauty that surrounds me daily. And each of us are called to reciprocate that love by seeking Him out in the beautiful world around us.
Beholding God is a spiritual practice that doesn’t always come easy to us. Our lives go at breakneck speed with endless demands on our time and attention which makes stopping to spend intentional time with God seem like less of a priority. Throughout my life, I have seen how putting my need to control my schedule over my actual need to rest in God’s presence has led me to seasons of complete burnout and overwhelming anxiety. But when I take a moment to be still and behold, I get to experience a peace that could only come from Him. The practice of beholding reminds me that my life with all of its tasks, trials, and time commitments are not my reason for living. He is.
The act of deliberately keeping our attention on the glory of God transforms us, just like Paul said in his letter to the Corinthians. You can’t help but be changed when you’re in the presence of Jesus. My own transformation has been made of incremental changes, from one degree to another, but I have learned just how vitally important it is to seek Him out. Because in the act of taking my eyes off my own overwhelming circumstances and turning them to Him instead helps me to see how much bigger He is than all of it. It’s taught me to surrender my own anxious need for control and entrust everything I have to the One who created it all, even me.
If you’ve never beheld God, I pray that you allow yourself to try. It doesn’t have to be on a random island in North Carolina because He is present everywhere at all times but nature is always my favorite place to start. And I promise that if you take the time to seek Him out, He will meet you there.
