What’s your motivation, God or a buckle? It changes the game.

What’s your motivation, God or a buckle? It changes the game.

Contestants at a weekly bull riding in Van Wert, Ohio (Hat Creek Ranch) decided who would get this buckle based on bull riders who demonstrated fruit of the Spirit in their life.

Contestants at a weekly bull riding in Van Wert, Ohio (Hat Creek Ranch) decided who would get this buckle based on bull riders who demonstrated fruit of the Spirit in their life.By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross

Part 4, Chasing Dreams

What if you have chased after that win but your horse has come up lame again and you just missed the cut for that finals you set as this year’s goal? Your truck breaks down and your entry fee money is gone because you need it for work. The guy you cover for at the sales barn is given the weekend off to rodeo and you have to draw out.

Remember, God comes first.

Everything is meant to bring Him glory and carry out His perfect plan.

Two possible reasons our gold buckle, or anything at all we set our hearts on, stays out of reach come right from the book of James: God is doing something in us through our struggle or our motives are messed up.

James 1:2-4 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

As hard as you feel like you’ve fought to get a spot at the finals and however many years you’ve put into making the PBR, James reminds us that a struggle can be a test of our faith that produces perseverance. What comes out of perseverance? Maturity (as a Christian) and someone who resembles Christ. From God’s perspective, being more like Christ is going to be more important than the next win.

When we can learn to see how much more that matters, we can find ourselves not only being at peace when our dreams seem to stay out of reach, but as James tells us, we can also find joy in that.

But in just a couple verses, James also paints a very clear picture about our heart conditions and why that might stand in the way of our dreams.

James 4: 2-3 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

There are times we’ve all seen people cheat or be cheated at a rodeo or bull riding. You can’t prove it, but you know the draw was rigged. A bull’s brand gets switched out with a better bull to win a bucking competition. The rules get bent to favor another contestant. A lot goes on in just rodeo alone when you’re trying to win that gold buckle, never mind everything else we see going on in the country around us.

Then James tells us we’re focused on ourselves so much that we forget to ask God what He wants for us and when we do ask Him for something, it’s to fulfill our own desires without considering what He wants for our lives.

Remember, everything we do is to glorify Him. When we seek what He wants for our lives, the focus of our dreams might even change but as the desires of our heart line up with God’s desires for us, well, we find our dreams do start coming true.

Glorifying God is a key to the pursuit of our dreams

Glorifying God is a key to the pursuit of our dreams

Bull Rider Dixon Holland from Virginia pauses to pray during the opening of  a recent bull riding in Wise, VA sanctioned by SEBRA (Southern Extreme Bull Riding Association) .

Bull Rider Dixon Holland from Virginia pauses to pray during the opening of a recent bull riding in Wise, VA sanctioned by SEBRA (Southern Extreme Bull Riding Association) .

Chasing Gold Buckle Dreams Part 3

By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross

How do we know if we’re chasing our God-given dreams or we’re chasing our heart in the wrong direction?

We know that the heart is not to be trusted—that our emotions can mislead us and that can get in the way of God’s plan for us. We also know that as we grow in our faith and put it first, our goals can change to line up with what God wants for us. Sometimes that’s the same as what our original dreams were and sometimes it’s not. If our dreams are changed but our focus is on our relationship with Jesus, we’re going to be happy with the new dream in front of us.

In Matthew 5, Jesus tells us that we should live in a way that our faith shows through and that when others see us living it out, it gives God glory, comparing us to a city on a hill that can be seen from all around or a light stand that is put in place to shine throughout a home.

Matthew 5:16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Jesus wants us to live like him but in a way that it can be seen by others, not for us to get attention but so that God is honored by our actions and choices.

When glorifying God becomes our focus, that can impact our dreams. We can still pursue a gold buckle dream, but it’s done in a way that we call attention to God. That involves more than thanking Him like we see when someone wins a Grammy (though there is nothing wrong with that) or taking a knee and pointing skyward in the arena. It includes living in such a way that others see we approach our success and failures differently and through that, want to know what we have that they don’t. That becomes a chance to tell them about Jesus. When that happens, the pursuit of our dream has now become a way to share our faith with others.

Then Paul tells the church in Corinth this: that everything we do should bring God glory.

1 Corinthians 10:31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God

Again, how we pursue our dreams becomes an opportunity to do this. Do we get angry at a setback or do we show patience and perseverance? Do we use our success as a way to tell others who Jesus is or do we stay quiet about it in conversations or even interviews with media doing stories about us. Do we show respect and kindness to the people we compete against and to our fans or do we look after our own interests?

Chasing our dreams gives us enormous opportunities to honor God whether we’re the rookie kid just getting started or the person that rookie looks up to.

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