By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Everyone talks like they knew “Dolly” on a first name basis because in a sense, she belonged to everyone through her work, personal way of communicating and her giving.
Christians claim Dolly as theirs because of her expressions of faith.
Progressives claim her as theirs because of her support of loving others even if they’re different from you.
Everyone claims her as their because she literally personifies the American Dream no matter what your politics. She came from nothing here in Sevier County where I get to live, and built herself an entertainment empire that will continue on likely until Jesus comes back.
Dolly’s story gives everyone hope that with hard work and dedication, they can make it.
My reason for being on social media is primarily to be connected with the rodeo and ranching cowboy communities through Cowboys of the Cross. I’m writing this encouragement for you.
Whether you like country music, whether you were born 75 years ago or 15, you know who Dolly Parton is. Many of you have made the trek to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge and I’ve seen many of you post right from Dollywood.
Whether ranching or rodeoing, you guys know you can’t make it without hard work and dedication. And we know we live in an imperfect and unfair world where not everyone makes it.
Being a Christian cowboy is the same thing. Where Dolly’s success story gives us all hope in what we can achieve here, there’s one more important hope we need to let her faith point us to and that’s the hope that comes in Jesus Christ. It’s an eternal hope where we know even if we don’t make it here, there’s something even greater waiting for us after this life if we put our hope in Jesus.
A saving faith in Jesus, one that guarantees us Heaven, comes from this understanding:
God, who we know is perfect, will not allow our imperfect sin into His presence. He will actually judge and condemn it. Jesus, as God’s son, was sent to live in this world and eventually die on the cross as a sacrifice meant to take God’s full wrath against all of our sins. When we believe in who Jesus was, and is, and what he did for us, we then need to repent of our sin with a sincere desire to be saved and forgiven from God’s judgment. When we do this, God will no longer condemn us but see as us perfect regardless of who we are and we’re given a perfect eternity with Him.
Dolly advocated kindness and to love everyone. This is how God does it—by giving every one the same chance to be saved and spend eternity with Him, no matter who we are and what mistakes we’ve made. He loves us all and wants us with Him for eternity.
That’s a hope that transcends the American Dream and gives us everything we need, success or failure in our own eyes or the eyes of others who wrongly judge us, to make it through this life and to the perfect one waiting for us.
Ephesians 2:8-10 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
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