ROCKY

The Miracle Horse

by Bruce Repka

When I was a kid, 5 or 6 years old, we used to watch the TV show "Gunsmoke". I guess I always wanted to be like Marshall Dillon back then. Seeing him ride Buck, the buckskin horse that was also in Bonanza, made an impact on me I guess, and probably planted a deep desire in my heart and a fondness for buckskin horses.

Fast forward 30 years later. My wife, Shara, brought two horses into the marriage when we were married on May 17, 2003. Tari, a liver chestnut Missouri Foxtrotter, and Nocona, a tri- colored Dun paint. I began to develop a liking to horses and riding.

We lost Tari in January 2008 in California. We think it was probably a heart attack. He was 24 years old. This is when the quest for a new horse started. I had developed a liking to Dun horses with their light brown color and black points. We began to look for a Dun gelding. We had many gracious offers from people who wanted to giveus a horse. Some were too young to ride, some weren't broke, some were mares and all of them were the wrong color.

The type of horse we were looking for had to be comparable to Nocona. Nocona is a gelding and is the type of horse you can take anywhere and around anything. He has handled himself very well in all types of environments and situations. He's been around guns, rodeos, roads, creeks, lakes, cows, other horses, dogs, deer, hauled in different types of trailers, been exposed to different types of noises and most importantly he handles himself very well around kids. When the kids come running, he remains very well mannered and lets them pet him, run around him, under him, feed him, etc. This is the type of horse we were looking for. He had to be a gelding, he had to be the right color and he had to be between 5 and 10 years old.

Early 2008 was a good time to be looking for a horse. The horse market was on a downturn and many people in various parts of the country were turning their horses out into the wild because of the economy and the high price of feed. We thought for sure we'd find our horse in no time at all. Every pasture, ranch and horse facility we drove by we were looking for our horse. Everyone we came in contact with that had anything to do with horses, we told them we were looking for a dun gelding. Every now and then someone would tell us about a horse they knew of and also had a picture of. When we looked at the picture, the horse wasn't a dun but a buckskin, which is a lighter color than a dun but still has the black mane and tail, and black stockings on his legs. I kept saying, "He's too light, he's too light. I'm looking for a dun which is a darker brown." Then something happened. During the summer of 2008, my desire and taste began to change. The medium brown color of the dun horse no longer appealed to me and I began to favor the buckskin color, the lighter the better. The color is actually called "buttermilk buckskin".

During the June 2008 Wild West Women Of The Word conference and Reno Rodeo in Reno, NV, we stayed with some friends of friends in Washoe Valley, NV, Gary and Judy. They had a young dun horse, but he was not for sale. Gary said he would contact his father in Idaho who was a horseman and knew of numerous horses for sale around the country. I talked to Mr. Porter and he had a nice grey gelding, but did not know of a buckskin at the time. We would meet up again with Gary and Judy Porter at the California Rodeo in Salinas, CA in July 2008. During that month between June and July was when my color preference began to change and I began to favor the buttermilk buckskin.

When Gary and Judy showed up in Salinas, CA at the rodeo, he informed me that he had come across a horse that he thought I would really like. He was being trained to ride, was really calm, was a 5 year old, and the people who had him were asking $1500 for him. We fetched our computer, Gary logged into his email account and pulled up the pictures. The horse was a buttermilk buckskin. He was exactly what I was wanting except he had one white foot. My preference was four black feet but I was willing to compromise because this horse was really nice looking. We contacted the people and requested a video of the horse. It took several weeks to get the video because of the owners not having a video camera and our heavy traveling schedule. During that time my hopes got really high and I was already figuring out how we were going to make room in our schedule to drive to Idaho to get this horse. When we got the video my hopes were shattered. The horse looked really nice, but when they filmed him trotting towards the camera, he was very paddle footed. This is a term that is used when a horse throws his feet out to the side when he trots. It looks like he is paddling a boat. This was a deal breaker. So we were back to square one.

Idaho Buckskin

Proverbs 29:18

Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained

Over the course of a year I battled all kinds of doubt and confusion as to what horse we were looking for. Was our horse really a buttermilk buckskin? Was he a Dun? Also, I began to take a liking to black and white paint horses. Was our horse a black and white paint? Was he a tricolor paint like Nocona? I was looking in so many directions that I came to the place that I didn't even know what I was looking for anymore. If the right horse came along, how would I even know ifit was the one? We prayed and prayed that the Lord would show us what He had for us concerning this horse. I searched the internet almost daily. Every horse classified site that was out there, I was on it on any given day. I would browse the ads and dream about all the horses. Duns, Buckskins, Black and White Paints, Dun Paints, Buckskin Paints. What was I looking for? What did the Lord have in store? I just didn't know anymore.

The 2009 Wild West Women Of The Word conference came around again in Reno, NV. Shara and I were there to help out with the praise and worship again. At the end of the conference, they have what they call the "Glory Line". It is a prayer line where the ministers who operate in the prophetic pray over and speak into the lives of the conference attendees. Someone came up and told me to go get in line while some of the other ladies came up to cover the music. Cindy from Sealy, TX was one of the prayer warriors in the prayer line that day. As I made my way through the line, it came my turn for Cindy to speak a blessing over me. She looked and said, "I was asking the Lord earlier what kind of horse does Bruce want? The Lord told me a buckskin horse! The Lord said you need a buckskin horse because the buckskin symbolizes strength and something that is solid and that is what you are. So when I get home, Bill and I are going to fervently pray that you get this horse. The Lord also said that this horse is bound. Its like the movie the "Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe", where the lion is on the altar and is bound in ropes and the mice came and chewed through the ropes and set him free. We are going to pray right now that God will send His spiritual mice to chew through the ropes that are keeping this horse bound!"

Habakkuk 2:1-3

 I will stand my watch And set myself on the rampart, And watch to see what He will say to me, And what I will answer when I am corrected. Then the LORD answered me and said: "Write the vision And make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, It will not tarry.

Talk about relief! I was so relieved now that all the confusion was gone about what color of horse to look for. The Lord impressed upon me that I needed to make my requests known to Him and to write the vision down and make it clear. I searched the internet and found the best looking buckskin horse I could find and I copied the

picture and posted it to my Facebook page. This is what I wrote below the picture:

Internet Buckskin

Have you seen me? I am between 5 and 10 years old, about 15 hands, buttermilk buckskin gelding, black mane & tail, 4 black stockings, and hard black feet. I am broke to ride, I know my cues and neck reign. I have a good stop. I am gentle around kids and know how to stand still. I trailer very well and have no bad habits. I am great out on the trail and I'm not afraid of water, weird looking rocks, bushes, trees, etc. I love to be around other horses and I play well with others. I can also go out alone because I am a well rounded, can-do-anything, solid horse. If you see me, please tell Bruce because he is looking for me and we will make a great team.

I did this in June of 2009 right after the conference. My friend Tom in Bellville, TX would call occasionally and ask if I had found the horse yet. He would encourage me to keep looking for him because he is right around the corner. "He might just run out in the middle of the road in front of you", Tom would say. So we looked for this horse everywhere we went. We still had the occasional offer from well meaning people to give us a horse, but it wasn't the horse the Lord told me He was giving me. In November 2009, we ministered at a cowboy church in Texas. The pastors had us over to their house and showed us their horses. They had a couple of black and white paint horses. The next day after the church meeting, they came to us and told us to come pick the black and white gelding up and take him home with us. This was hard to refuse because of who they were and they had paid a lot of money for this horse. But the bottom line was he was not our horse. Had the Lord not given us the word in Reno that we were getting a buckskin, we probably would have taken the black and white horse and would have missed out on the tremendous blessing that was ahead.

In January of 2010 we were in Tombstone, AZ for the annual International Cowboy Ministers Conference. During the conference the spirit of prophecy came forth and once again Cindy delivered a word from the Lord to us concerning our horse. The Lord said through her "You've waited patiently and you are getting your Dun horse. He is big and powerful. Very muscular" To say the least, Shara and I were elated! It was the shot in the arm that we needed. It was great encouragement and the right time. We felt we had been cheated out of so many opportunities to ride in some of the beautiful places we had been and minister to people out on the trail. Thank you Lord, we needed that word! We have waited and waited! We had been thanking the Lord for our horse every time it came to mind, and with that word we thanked Him even more for bringing us our horse that we had believed for! Immediately the devil came to try and bring about confusion. Is the horse a buckskin or a dun? Well, we believed that the Lord had shown us that it was a buttermilk buckskin dun! Some people call them a Dun-skin. The Lord was giving clues and narrowing the search for us. Thank you Jesus!

In March 2010, we were in Chino Valley, AZ. I got a call from Tom in Texas. He began to tell me that lately everywhere he drove he began to see buckskin horses in the fields. His wife Cathy later said that she had been noticing the same thing. Tom asked the Lord what this was all about. He said the Lord told him "I'm showing you that Bruce's horse is getting real close to being revealed." Then towards the end of the phone conversation Tom got real quiet. He shared with me that he was seeing a vision of the horse. Now keep in mind that I had not shared with Tom the exact color of the horse that I wanted or the description that I had posted on my Facebook page. Here is Tom's description of what he saw and heard that the Lord showed him:

The horse is a buckskin dun

he is 7 or 8, maybe 9

he was auctioned off as a stud

he was a high dollar stallion at one time

he was cut late, at 5 or 6

he has a calm mind, great confirmation, big wide chest

he is about 15 hands or just shy, totally broke and gentle

he is not a normal color, he is a lighter dun, almost palomino color

he has a nice short head, big jaws

he is standing in a pen or corral

he has a long black tail and mane

he is really calm

the Lord is preparing the person to release him

I immediately wrote all of this down and began to compare it with what the Lord showed me, and what the Lord had spoken to us through Cindy. It all matched up. Now the Lord was really getting specific on the details. Now, what we mean by the phrase "the Lord is preparing the person to release him" is this: God knows all about us, our circumstances and situations. He knew that the person who had this horse was going to be making the decision to sell him, so the Lord in His grace was consoling and comforting this person about making this decision. The Lord is not taking away, but in fact is giving grace to the person who is trying to make a decision, and therefore is "preparing" the person to release him. Shara and I also began to change the way we were praying about this horse. We began to pray for the owner too, because if someone had a horse this nice and were having to sell the horse, they were probably having a difficult time making the decision to sell him.  So we began to pray that they would have peace in making their decision.

Every buckskin horse I saw going down the road I would look to see if it matched up to the description or not. Now the question was, if we saw one that matched up, what next? How would we inquire about the horse that we saw standing in a pen or corral? Looking back now, I realize that we have to wait on God. He will work it out in His timing. I will admit that it was tough and very humbling to stand in the confidence in the Lord. We believed that He would deliver what He promised, but it was almost embarrassing or humiliating to see some of the same people year after year, or see those people who had offered us a horse year after year when they would ask "You still haven't gotten your buckskin horse yet?" We were in a position that if God didn't come through, we would fail and we were possibly chasing a pipe dream or looking for something that didn't exist. Thank God for His word and encouragement and those who will step boldly into the prophetic when the Spirit of the Lord is upon them and deliver a Word from Him to those who need to hear it! That gave us all the confidence in the world! Now the question was just "when?" When will it come to pass Lord? How will it happen?

Proverbs 16:9

A man’s heart plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.

We were in Texas in April and May 2010 for a conference, ministry and family time. Before we left, we stopped by Tom and Cathy's for a visit. We spent several hours that day visiting with them. Upon our departure from their house, Tom began talking about the buckskin horse. He began to encourage me as always, that God was working it out and that the horse is coming at just anytime, it was overdue! Then Tom's face went blank, and he exclaimed "Wait a minute! Mr. B has a horse exactly like we're talking about standing out in his pasture! Could your horse be standing in Mr. B's pasture? Lord is this me or is this You?" Then he said we will have to pray about this because if the horse is in Mr. B's pasture, it would take a miracle for him to part with that horse. Mr. B owned the local western and tack store in Bellville, TX. Tom used to work for Mr. B in the saddle shop. He said Mr. B paid a lot of money for that horse several years ago and it was his pride and joy. We left with Tom saying, "If he is the horse, then we are just going to have to trust the Lord to work it all out."

We left Texas the next day and headed for California, then on to Nevada for the WWWOTW conference, then back to California for the Salinas, CA rodeo. Shara would be riding with the Glory Riders of California ministry drill team at the rodeo carrying to rodeo sponsor flags. Before we left Reno, NV one of the gals at the conference said she knew a horse trader in Arkansas and if the horse we were looking for existed, he could find it. She had not been in contact with him for some time because his daughter had tragically passed away due to an accident. She contacted him and he told her "do you know how hard it is going to be to find a horse like that?" That week, he had two people call him with buckskin horses they wanted to sell. Once we were in California, he called me and told me about the horses and had emailed me pictures of them. They were both very nice horses, but one was too dark in color, and the other was a near perfect match with the exception of his white feet. He was a beautiful buttermilk buckskin color, but he was not a dun. He also said the owner wanted $5500 for him. I told him that we were not in a position to spend that much on a horse and would have to decline. On top of that, he just didn't fit the description perfectly. He was the right age, about the right size, came from an auction, was a stud and cut late, but he had white feet and my horse doesn't have white feet. I had also been talking to Tom in Texas and asked him if he believed that the horse in Mr. B's pasture could be the horse we've been looking for. His reply was that he didn't know and that maybe the Lord just reminded him of that horse to give him more of a visual of what my horse looked like. So at that point, I believed that my horse was somewhere out west. There was no reason for this thought, it was just a thought.

Arkansas horse

During the practice week for the rodeo, we were approached by a dear friend that said she needed to speak with us in private. We had no idea what it was about, but we all met in our trailer. She said she has never done this before so she was just going to throw it out there and tell us. What she had to say caught Shara and I by surprise and left us speechless! She said there was a group of people all across the United States that so badly wants us to have the buckskin horse we have been talking about for 2-1/2 years, that they were all pooling their money together and wanted to buy us the horse. Their plan was to find a horse and buy it, then invite us to a location and present the horse to us. One of the men who was coordinating everything finally said they could not do that. He said Bruce needs to see the horse and ride him first before we buy anything. We are going to have to tell Bruce and Shara what we want to do. The person telling us this said that everyone wanted to remain anonymous and she didn't even know who all was involved, but that it was people from all over the country and that countless people were being ministered to by the Lord because of our standing in faith for what we believed and prayed for! Praise God!

Shara and I had stood in agreement many times that the horse be released to us NOW, and we sowed a financial seed into another ministry believing we have received our horse. Now we were told that if money was the only thing standing in our way from getting our horse, God had moved upon people all over the country to provide for that too! Now all we had to do was find the horse! Everything was falling into place. We had the clues, the description, the money, now we just needed to find the horse!

After the California Rodeo in Salinas, CA we headed to the Mescalero Apache Reservation in Mescalero, NM for the 1st Annual Mountain Top New Mexico Indian Fellowship Camp Meeting. We had looked forward to this for a year. Native Americans from all over the country gathering to pray for revival on the reservations throughout the United States. It ran for 5 days and there were guest speakers from all over the country. During that week the thought came to me a couple of times that I should call Tom and see if we could somehow contact Mr. B and see if his horse was for sale. I never made the call. However, on Wednesday morning July 28, during prayer time, Shara later said that she had requested of the Lord that our horse, wherever he was, be released now - enough was enough! Also during prayer time, my phone was vibrating indicating that I was receiving a phone call. The caller also left a message. When the service was over, I looked at my phone and there was a missed call and a voicemail from Tom. I listened to the message and Tom said that he had just found out that the horse Mr. B has is for sale, he wants $5000 for him and he believed he is exactly the horse I have been looking for!

Talking to Tom later, he said he was driving home from town and the Lord impressed upon him to stop by a friends house whom he used to work with at the western store, the store that Mr. B owned. He made a detour and went to her saddle shop at her house. They talked about the Lord for a while and then something came up about a buckskin horse. She said Mr. B has a buckskin horse that their son used to own and they just heard that Mr. B had put him up for sale. So while she was calling Mr. B asking if the horse was indeed for sale, Tom K was on his phone leaving me a message that the horse was for sale, and it was the same time Shara was asking the Lord to release the horse! It turns out that the people who had pooled their money together to buy us the horse had planned on spending around $5000, which is exactly the price that Mr. B had decided to sell his horse at.

At that point there was a couple of emails and phone calls back and forth between me and Mr. B. Everything he told me and everything the previous owners told me lined up exactly with the words from the Lord we were given, the vision that was told to me by Tom and the desire that God had put in my heart for the color and type of horse we had prayed and believed for. After 2-1/2 years it was coming together. It was not just about us getting another horse, but about God ministering to people everywhere about how big, how good, how specific, and how gracious He is towards His children! There are countless people everywhere that have been ministered to and are being ministered to about the process, events and the journey of finding this horse!

Job 33:14-15

For God speaks again and again, though people do not recognize it. He speaks in dreams, in visions of the night,when deep sleep falls on people as they lie in their beds.

While traveling to Texas to go see Rocky, the buckskin horse, the devil began to mess with me again about a detail of this horse. Although he had a very light line down his back, he didn't have a prominent dorsal stripe that the typical dun horse has. I began to get into "the cares" about this. One night, the Lord gave me a dream. In my dream I was traveling through a town where a prophet was scheduled to speak. I went to hear him speak. When the prophet got up to speak he said, "There is the buckskin horse and there is the dun horse, BUT don't overlook the Dun-skin! He is a combination of the two and he is better because he has a very light stripe down his back and his bones are really thick!" Then in the dream the prophet said something very quietly and no one heard what he said. So in my dream I said, "What did you say? I didn't hear you, please say it again!" The prophet stopped and said, "Bruce, if you didn't hear what I said it's because you've forgotten the words that I've given you!" When I woke up the next morning I knew that this was the horse. The Lord had already told me that he was the horse and now once again He was confirming it in that dream. Incidentally, after we got the horse my uncle came to look at him and his first comment was that he really likes howRocky has big thick bones!

First ride on Rocky at Mr. B's

The horse's name is Rocky. He is a registered American Quarter Horse Association Buckskin. He has seven dun horses in his pedigree, he is 15 hands tall, he is a buttermilk buckskin gelding, cut late, just turned 8 years old in May 2010. He was a stud horse; he is muscular and has a black mane, black tail, four big hard black feet, four black stocking, black on the tips of his ears, and black around his eyes. He has a very light line down his back that is sometimes hard to see, but it is there. In matching with what I had posted on Facebook, one of the first things Mr. B told me about Rocky is that he has no bad habits, he stands very quietly, he does well with riders of all ages, he will go anywhere across creeks, under trees, etc. Praise the Lord! He is exactly what I wanted, exactly what the Lord told me He was giving me, and he is the miracle horse! He is the desire of my heart that was planted there years ago when I watched Marshall Dillon ride "Buck" in Gunsmoke on TV. God knows all about us, our inner most thoughts and desires, and He never forgets. He is concerned about the little things in our lives, even the ones we forget about!

Rocky

Some of the lessons I learned during the process of acquiring Rocky that I would like to pass on are as follows:

1. Wait on God, His timing is perfect. He will bring to pass what He says He will do.

2. Don't ignore the dreams, desires and visions He has given you. Write them down and post them where you can see them daily as a reminder to yourself.

3. The big one: Don't settle for less than God's best!

In Luke chapter 4 we can see three of the devil's tactics:

"Command this stone to be made bread."

The devil wants you to accept something less than God's best and then have you try and make it be what you are waiting on God for. If you're believing for bread, don't accept stones and try to make stones become bread.

"Fall down and worship me and I will give it to you"

Don't go the way of the world or compromise your beliefs and faith in God just to get what you desire. Do it God's way and wait on Him to bring it in His timing. Don't take the devil's short cuts. His way only leads to death and destruction in the end.

"Throw yourself down from here and the angels will save you"

Many people borrow, beg and steal to make their dreams become reality and in the end their dreams become their nightmares. When you wait on God and do what He says to do, it will all work out and what you are trusting Him for will come to pass in His timing. Don't let the devil talk you in to making foolish decisions and then expect God to cover you and everything to be just fine. God can, and will, turn every negative and bad thing around for good, but why go through the heartache and pain during the process of doing things that He never told you to do? Wait on God and do the things and make the decisions He tells you to make.

Update: Nov. 13, 2010

There was another clue that the Lord gave me about Rocky that I did not recognize until now. In October of 2009, a lady who is a friend of a friend in Payson, AZ, gave me a picture of her riding a horse that she had owned probably 20 years ago. It was a buckskin horse. I thought it was odd that she gave me the picture instead of just showing it to me. At the time I thought "yes, this is a nice looking horse, but he is not even around anymore and this picture was from 20 years ago." The horse in the picture was a buttermilk buckskin. Black points, no white on him anywhere. Big and muscular. Wide chest. As I look at the picture now and compare it to Rocky, the resemblance is striking. It took me a year to figure out that the Lord was using this picture to encourage me once again, and here was another clue as to what my horse looked like. It's amazing to me, all the ways that the Lord speaks to us. Some we recognize, some we don't and pass it off. I started to throw that picture away many times but just never felt right about it. Now that I see that it was the Lord who was trying to speak to me with that picture, it is precious evidence in the story of Rocky and how real my God is.

Payson Buckskin