John Wesley & His Horse

In his personal diary on March 17, 1746, John Wesley recorded an account of the healing of his horse. “I took my leave of Newcastle; …my horse was so exceedingly lame that I was afraid I must have lain by too. We could not discern what it was that was amiss; and yet he would scarce set his foot to the ground. By riding thus seven miles, I was thoroughly tired, and my head ached more than it had done for some months… I then thought, ‘Cannot God heal either man or beast, by any means, or without any?’ Immediately my weariness and headache ceased, and my horse’s lameness in the same instant. Nor did he halt any more either that day or the next.”

John Wesley traveled 250,000 miles on horseback, averaging twenty miles a day for forty years; preached 4,000 sermons; produced 400 books, and knew ten languages. Many days he covered 70 or 80 miles, once doing 90 miles in 20 hours.

His advice to his preachers was expressed in this rule: “Be merciful to your beast. Not only ride moderately, but see with your own eyes, that your horse be rubbed, fed, and bedded.

In his 2005 book, Dancing with Your Dark Horse, Chris Irwin, writes: “I believe Christ was born in a barn for a reason—in the company of nature we are immersed in the truth. Horses don’t lie and neither do any of the animals in God’s great kingdom. Thank God we have the horses to teach us how to listen.”