The Work of Becoming

I watched my daughter ride in a horse show recently, giving her very best to something she has worked hard to learn. And as I watched her, I couldn’t help but think about all the days that came before that moment. The days when her horse didn’t respond the way she hoped. The rides that felt difficult. The moments when progress seemed slow and the two of them didn’t quite understand one another.

There is no shortcut for that kind of learning.

And there is certainly no substitute for love and care when you’re in relationship with another living being.

What I saw in the show ring wasn’t something that happened overnight. The rhythm between my daughter and her horse was built over time—through riding, certainly, but also through grooming, feeding, paying attention, trying again, learning one another, and showing up.

Again and again.

Skill mattered.

But so did love.

Perhaps that is part of what makes learning something new so beautiful. We often want the finished product—the confidence, the rhythm, the effortless communication. We don’t always appreciate the ordinary faithfulness required to get there.

But becoming takes time.

It takes discipline to keep practicing when it isn’t fun.

It takes patience to stay when progress feels slow.

And it takes love to keep paying attention to someone or something you are still learning to understand.

Eventually, the repetition begins to become relationship.

The skill begins to become rhythm.

And what once required so much concentration begins to look almost effortless—not because the work disappeared, but because the work became part of who they are together.

I think there is something deeply theological about that.

God is not merely interested in what we accomplish. He is forming us through the ordinary rhythms of showing up, paying attention, practicing faithfulness, and learning to love.

We become through relationship.

We become through repetition.

We become through patience.

And sometimes, we become while sitting in a saddle, realizing that the beautiful thing happening in front of us was built quietly, one ordinary day at a time.

There is no substitute for love. And there is no shortcut to becoming.