{"id":5653,"date":"2026-08-17T08:40:54","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T12:40:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5653"},"modified":"2026-08-17T08:40:54","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T12:40:54","slug":"god-our-deliverer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/17\/god-our-deliverer\/","title":{"rendered":"God Our Deliverer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here<\/a>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each day this month of August we\u2019ll be looking at one of the extraordinary metaphors that the Bible uses to illustrate the nature of our relationship with God.<\/em>


On a wintry morning in February 1956, a riding instructor named Harry de Leyer drove four hours from his Long Island farm to New Holland, Pennsylvania.

Every Monday, as many as 300 horses were auctioned at this Amish community.\u00a0Harry, a Dutch immigrant, knew horses. He had $80 in his pocket and hoped to purchase a gentle animal that could become a lesson horse for his students.\u00a0

The auction attracted a plethora of buyers.\u00a0Some of the horses were purebreds.\u00a0They fetched the big bucks.\u00a0Some animals needed to be trained.\u00a0Others simply needed to be loved.\u00a0There were worn-out plough horses, tired ponies, and creatures who had been ill-treated for years by callous owners.

By midday the auction would be over and every horse would be purchased.\u00a0

The last bidder was always the Kill buyer.\u00a0He would pay bottom dollar for the animals no one wanted.\u00a0They would be crowded into a truck and driven to the slaughterhouse, where their carcasses would become pet food and their hooves boiled down into glue.\u00a0

On his way to New Holland, Harry\u2019s old car struggled through the snow.\u00a0Then he blew a tire.\u00a0By the time he arrived, the auction was over.\u00a0Everyone was gone except the man who had just finished loading about 15 animals into the Kill truck for their final ride.\u00a0

Harry still hoped his long drive wasn\u2019t in vain.\u00a0Maybe there was a decent horse on the Kill truck.\u00a0

The slaughterhouse buyer was in a hurry.\u00a0Harry stepped forward to take a look. He was drawn to an underfed, overworked plough horse, at least eight years old, covered with mud and manure.\u00a0\u201cI couldn\u2019t see much through the slats in the truck, but I saw this gray horse that had very kind eyes who would be a quiet-type horse who would give back in loyalty and affection.\u00a0He was missing a shoe, had cuts on his knees, and I could see where hair had been rubbed off by a harness.\u201d

How much was he worth?\u00a0\u201cHe\u2019s yours for $80,\u201d said the Kill buyer \u2013 exactly the amount of money in Harry\u2019s wallet.\u00a0He handed over the cash.

When the neglected horse arrived at the de Leyer farm, Harry\u2019s daughter \u2013 captivated by his gray coat against the background of falling snow \u2013 thought he looked like a snowman.\u00a0Now he had a name.

Snowman proved to be so gentle, especially around children and nervous riders, that a doctor who lived down the road from the de Leyers begged to buy him as a horse for his kids.\u00a0Harry consented.\u00a0

That\u2019s when the fun began.

Three days later, Harry looked up and saw Snowman standing in his paddock.\u00a0The horse had jumped numerous fences in order to rejoin the man he loved.\u00a0Harry returned the horse, advising the doctor to build his fences higher and to tie a tire to Snowman so he couldn\u2019t jump.\u00a0Three days later, Snowman was back in Harry\u2019s paddock \u2013 tire and all.\u00a0

Gradually it dawned on the Dutch horse trainer that this might be an extraordinary animal.\u00a0

The horse never again left Harry\u2019s side.\u00a0De Leyer began to enter Snowman in jumper events.\u00a0

People laughed out loud when the old plough horse walked into arenas alongside the best of the best \u2013 animals specially bred and trained to clear high hurdles.\u00a0But laughter turned to awe when Snowman won the National Horse Show Open Jumper Championship in 1958 \u2013 just two years after being rescued from the Kill truck.\u00a0Then he was named the American Horse Shows Association Horse of the Year in both 1958 and 1959.\u00a0

Snowman became a celebrity.\u00a0He was featured in LIFE<\/em> magazine, appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson,<\/em> and for years was the star of his own fan club. He even inspired a Breyer Horse collectible.\u00a0And yes, that\u2019s actually Snowman in the picture above.

Along the way he never lost his love for children.\u00a0When the school bus arrived in the afternoon to drop off the de Leyer kids, Snowman frequently jumped over his paddock fence to meet them.\u00a0

Who knew that for a mere $80 Harry de Leyer had rescued one of the greatest jumpers in equestrian history \u2013 a horse that would become a member of his own family?\u00a0

If it\u2019s hard to imagine going from the slaughterhouse to the penthouse, just think what God has done for us<\/u><\/em>.\u00a0

The apostle Paul minces no words:\u00a0\u201cGod rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons. He\u2019s set us up in the kingdom of the Son he loves so much, the Son who got us out of the pit we were in, got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating\u201d (Colossians 1:13-14, The Message<\/em>).

God, in other words, is our deliverer.

That stands out in one of the most metaphor-dense texts in all of Scripture, David\u2019s celebration of how God rescued him from his own version of the Kill truck: \u201cThe\u00a0Lord\u00a0is my rock,\u00a0my fortress\u00a0and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield\u00a0and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold,\u00a0my refuge and my savior\u2014from violent people you save me\u201d (2 Samuel 22:2-3).

Within the space of a few words, God is declared to be a rock, a fortress, a shield, a stronghold, a refuge, and a horn.

The word \u201chorn\u201d in this context suggests at least two things \u2013 the cranial protuberance of a strong animal intent on defending its young, and the horn-like corners of the altar in Israel\u2019s tabernacle, which innocent people could cling to in search of justice.

It\u2019s highly significant, and certainly no accident, that Jesus is described in Luke 1:68-69 as God\u2019s horn of salvation. He is our true deliverer.

People in our day and age have a hard time picturing themselves on the Kill truck.\u00a0

Many are put off by the very notion that we need to be rescued.\u00a0

But once we\u2019ve spent some time living under God\u2019s leadership \u2013 experiencing hope instead of cynicism, grace instead of exasperation, purpose instead of meaninglessness \u2013 only then will we grasp what a miracle it was that when God looked at us, covered with spiritual mud and manure, he didn\u2019t turn away.\u00a0

Instead, he saw in us what he already knew us to be:

Champions.\u00a0<\/em>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here Each day this month of August we\u2019ll be looking at one of the extraordinary metaphors that the Bible uses to illustrate the nature of our relationship with God. On a wintry morning in February 1956, a riding instructor named Harry de Leyer drove four hours from his Long Island farm to… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5654,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1168,46,1159],"class_list":["post-5653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-deliverance-from-sin","tag-horses","tag-metaphors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5653"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5655,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5653\/revisions\/5655"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}