by admin | Oct 11, 2019 | The Bull Pen
God can put the pieces together to form a picture we can’t even begin to see. A cowboy church devotion from horse man Jim Bull.
By Jim Bull / Cowboys of the Cross
I’ve known something for a long time and finally come up with an illustration that gives an idea of the complexity of life.
When you were a kid, do you remember putting together jigsaw puzzles that had a board with a curved border that all six pieces had one obvious spot for it to go? And do you remember putting every piece in the wrong place and turning it in a complete circle three to five times before either putting it in a different place on the board and spinning it again or putting it down and getting a new piece or giving up and finding something else to play with that didn’t hurt your brain?
Move forward a few years. Do you remember trying again to put together jigsaw puzzles? Only now you’re skilled and working with 500 pieces or one thousand or you like the challenge and go for puzzles with ten thousand pieces! You start with the boarder pieces or a specific color or whatever is your preferred method to make sense of the madness. Now it’s because you enjoy the challenge so you don’t give up, you just keep plugging along, piece by piece till you proudly look upon a finished puzzle.
Now we’re going to look at God. He takes all the millions of pieces of our lives such as who we meet and when and where we are, what we pay attention to. The good things and the bad; all the things that make up a life. It’s like the pieces are in a bingo ball scrambler cage, He reaches in and pulls one piece out and places it on a blank table with no border in the exact location it belongs. No twisting or turning or spinning or searching for a boarder or color. He just knows where it belongs. Then He grabs the next piece of the puzzle and places it perfectly. He is an amazing God!
But wait! That puzzle with millions of pieces is just your life! He also mixes your puzzle pieces with all of the people you are affected by or have an influence on or that influence you. Now it’s a puzzle with billions or trillions of pieces and it’s in 3D and he’s still pulling them all out of a bingo ball scrambler cage! You can look up awesome in a thesaurus and use every word it has and still not get the full picture of how great God is. Praise Him and worship Him for He is worthy! He knows your every hair, thought and action, inside and out. He is the master of your puzzle.
Luke 12:5-7 But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him! “Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is forgotten before God. But the very hairs of your head are numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.
by admin | Sep 26, 2019 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
Chasing Gold Buckle Dreams or Chasing God Part 9
Chasing dreams can be as simple as chasing a rodeo win or as complicated helping bring food to a starving African village
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Chase those dreams!
God has made us who we are and when we put Him first, we should enjoy the freedom to chase our dreams.
Sometimes it’s going to go well and sometimes it’s going to be hard but those are important truths we can embrace from the message found in Ecclesiastes 3: 1-15.
1To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven:
2a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build,
4a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6a time to search and a time to count as lost, a time to keep and a time to discard,
7a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
God’s Works Remain Forever
9 What does the worker gain from his toil? 10 I have seen the burden that God has laid on men to occupy them. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men, yet they cannot fathom the work that God has done from beginning to end.
12 I know that there is nothing better for men than to rejoice and do good while they live, 13 and also that every man should eat and drink and find satisfaction in all his labor—this is the gift of God. 14 I know that everything God does will remain forever; nothing can be added to it or taken from it. God does it so that men should revere Him. 15 What exists has already been, and what will be has already been, for God will call to account what has passed.
God is in control of it all and there is a purpose behind it all whether we ever see or understand it in our temporary lives here. We have to trust this. Nothing will be wasted no matter if it’s something we go through that we see as good or bad. That’s hard to understand whether it’s as big as having cancer or a buck-off streak that lasts more than six months. These are the struggles we go through in the “time for every purpose under heaven” we see in verse 1.
Solomon, who wrote Ecclesiastes, shows our desire to know the purpose of it all. The disciples wrestle with this in the New Testament, as we read about them trying to understand what Jesus really came here to do—take the punishment of our sins so that through his death on the cross, we could be saved from the punishment of our sins.
We know we’re made in God’s image and we know He sees us as perfect once we’ve asked to be forgiven of our sins through a saving faith in Jesus and an understanding he took the punishment meant for us for our sins.
In verse 13, we see that we should see everything as a gift from God—those good times and those bad times, because through those gifts is the opportunity to glorify Him.
Be satisfied in this life! Paul taught us in Philippians to be content in the circumstance we find ourselves in. James teaches us to find joy, even in our struggles, trusting God is using them to build us to be more like Jesus.
Through our successes AND our struggles, becoming more like Jesus is something we CAN be excited by when we understand how significant that is.
The pain we feel or the joy, it can all be used for God’s glory so whatever it is we pursue, when we understand this, we can see purpose in it. Win or lose, it isn’t about getting that buckle or reaching the next goal—it’s about glorifying Him along the way and understanding we’re part of His perfect plan.
Let God guide your steps, look for how you can glorify Him and chase it all as hard as you can, knowing as we do good and take pleasure in the work He’s put in front of us, we belong to Him. However we see ourselves and however many mistakes we make on the way to our goals, He wants us with Him in Heaven when our dream-chasing here is done.
by admin | Aug 22, 2019 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
Christian Bull Rider Clete Bontrager says a cowboy prayer after cowboy church at the SEBRA bull riding in Marshall, Michigan, produced by Lost Nations Rodeo Company and Shiloh Walden.
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
When you’re chasing your gold buckle dreams, do you see God as a means to success or is glorifying Him your purpose?
The answer will tell you a lot about your relationship with Him and changing your focus could bring about success in an unexpected way. Even what the world measures as failure or loss can be success when it points others toward a saving faith in Jesus.
Whatever we do, win or lose, it’s going to bring God glory, even if we never fully see how the pieces fit together.
Ephesians 1:11-12 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.
There’s so much teaching out there that overlooks the what’s in the Bible about struggles and the purpose they serve or the presence of sin that causes the struggles to exist in the first place. A few verses out of context can give us the idea that God will give us our heart’s desire. The only way for that to be true is if our heart’s are focused on Him and His desires for us.
When we seek God, and it’s His plan we’re following, he WILL give us what we ask because it is what he wants for us to begin with.
A verse that often has people thinking God will make wishes come true, suddenly means that yes, of course God will give us what we seek when it’s Him and His glory that we’re seeking.
Matthew 7:7-8 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
If a person with a terminal cancer diagnosis demonstrates joy and perseverance and points out to others it’s because of his or her faith in God and understanding of the Bible, they can find themselves at peace with their situation. It doesn’t mean they don’t pray for and believe that God could miraculously heal them. Sometimes that’s part of His plan. I’ve seen a bull rider go from expecting to die from lung cancer to the spreading disease completely disappearing between specialist appointments to talk about how they might extend his time here. I’ve seen a barrel man’s kidneys fail and the poison build in his body to the point they were preparing to move him to hospice to die, but suddenly find them working again and home from the hospital a few days later. And I’ve listened at church to the story of a young man in the congregation who had a disease that slowly suffocated him to death, sharing until the very end his trust and love for God.
Romans 8:18 I Consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
Paul is teaching through this section about the security we have in our salvation and that no matter what we go through here or how hard it might be, God will use us to reveal Himself. When we understand our time here is short compared to eternity and when we understand that our eternal home in Heaven is perfect, no matter what we go through here, we can be encouraged by knowing it can help others find their way home too.
Our gold buckle dreams are worth pursuing in our time here when God is at the center of them and we know He’s using us to bring Him glory, but the rewards we might gain here pale in comparison to what is coming in Heaven.
by admin | Jun 26, 2019 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
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.
by admin | Jun 14, 2019 | Behind the Bucking Chutes
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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