Walkout for gun control leads to lesson in knowing what you believe and why

Walkout for gun control leads to lesson in knowing what you believe and why

by | Apr 26, 2018 | Behind the Bucking Chutes

By Scott Hilgendorff/Cowboys of the Cross

I was talking with a young bull rider about a second walkout at his school over gun control at a bulls, broncs and barrel race in Tennessee in April.

As a supporter of carrying firearms, the graduating student was frustrated by the walkout and went outside to ask his classmates why they were out there and what they thought it would accomplish. He said no one had an answer. For that reason alone, their cause lost any ability to have influence over someone they were needing to reach if their reason for being out there was really to bring about change. It only pushed the bronc rider further away from their cause.

Many barrel racers go down the road alone and we know some of them are armed, if not of their own choosing, often by husbands and boyfriends concerned about what happens when they stop at 2 a.m. for gas in the middle of nowhere. Some of us think reforms are necessary. Many rodeo cowboys and bull riders carry.

But this isn’t about gun control and what side of the issue we’re on. It’s about needing to know what we stand for and how to defend it as Christians.

The message gun control advocates had for this young bronc rider was completely lost when all they could say was they were ‘for it’, not knowing what ‘it’ was.

Many of us will tell people we’re a Christian, but when we’re asked about what we actually believe, we don’t have an answer. We’re ‘for Jesus’ but we don’t necessarily know what we mean by that.

If we don’t have an answer, we’ve lost credibility in a culture that is more and more skeptical or even aggressive against what we believe. If we don’t have an answer, we can’t share what, according to our beliefs, is the most important

It’s like telling a dying person that you have the cure for cancer, you just don’t know how to tell him what it is. Think about that for a moment, please, because it really is that serious. Christians believe in Heaven and Hell and that we know the only way to be sure of going to Heaven is a saving faith in Jesus Christ. We have to be able to tell others about it because it’s the difference between someone gaining eternal life or eternal suffering.

1 Peter 3:15 “but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,”

Jesus is the hope that is in us and Peter is telling us we need to be ready to tell someone about him at any time, especially when the faith comes under attack. In this section of scripture, he acknowledges we may suffer for our beliefs but that we need to be prepared to defend them.

The second part of this verse speaks to another side of how we’re to communicate our beliefs: with gentleness and respect. Whether it’s gun control, police brutality or the fight for a living wage, the message is often lost in shouting, riots or any kind of manipulation or force. As Christians saved be grace through faith in Jesus Christ, nothing matters more than getting our message of hope out there in a way that people will be willing to listen.

“I can do all things” means so much more than you think

“I can do all things” means so much more than you think

by | Apr 10, 2018 | Behind the Bucking Chutes

By Scott Hilgendorff/Cowboys of the Cross                

Almost every Christian in rodeo and bull riding knows the verse: Philippians 4:13– “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” While the wording varies from Bible version to Bible version, it’s one of the most common verses quoted by athletes.

That’s because when it’s taken out of context, it can be encouraging to someone trying to succeed. We mistakenly take this verse to mean that God will give us the strength to accomplish all our goals.

Even though it’s a common way of looking at the verse, that’s not what it is actually saying. When we go back and read some of the verses before this one and consider who wrote it and why, under what conditions, we get some better insight into what it really means…and it means a whole lot more than we think.

What do we know about the author? It was Paul who we know was once a rich, hated man who persecuted Christians before he was saved by an encounter with the resurrected Jesus. We know that in following Christ, he helped the early church grow and through that, suffered a great deal of persecution including imprisonment and threat of execution. We know from reading all of Philippians, that Paul wrote the letter to the church at Philippi while imprisoned.

Now look at the other verses and see how much more Paul is telling us and see why we can learn from the other verses that Paul isn’t telling us God will help us achieve our goals.

Now think about your own life and struggles you’ve faced. A time when there was no money to pay fees and you had to sit one out. A time when an injury took you out of the sport for six weeks to recover and ended a dream of reaching the finals. A time when an injury lead to surgery that lead to never competing again.

Paul is showing us, from his own life, that God will get us through whatever we are going through, good or bad. When the hard times come, and they always do, this verse can suddenly mean so much more than what we think when it comes to facing a struggle, not just the pursuit of success. AND, by reading other books of the Bible, we learn that our lives aren’t about pursuing our success and that the strength God gives, comes to us when we are in His will, following His plan for our lives. When we stop trying to make scripture fit our own dreams and plans and start seeking God’s direction for our lives, “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength” begins to mean something so much more.

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