Stephen Bly
An Old West Western Slang Devotional by Stephen Bly
An Old West type ladino character, J.W. lives back in the woods along the Salmon River Breaks somewhere. You take the gravel road 18 miles. Turn left at the big buckskin tamarack. Then 15 miles down a dirt and mud rutted trail. Park your rig and hike down to his cabin. But when J.W. posts “Absolutely No Trespassing” signs, he means it. More than one intruder discovered shots fired over his head.
I see him a couple times a year. His nearest neighbor, Homer, is a good ole Old West kind of Texas boy who calls J.W. a ladino. In the southwest brasada country, the wild Longhorns in the brush who escaped were called ladinos. They were cunning and dangerous.
Some of these ladinos built such a reputation, the cowboys didn’t bother trying to round them up. Too great an effort in time, expense and possibility of injury. Not worth it.
We treat people like ladinos sometimes. The self-imposed isolation. Their rejection of social contact, fellowship. Their angry nature. All of this convinces us they don’t deserve our attention. They might get mad and toss us off the place anyway, so why bother? As the Old West saying goes, never dive into murky waters.
But there are times to remember one of the basic tenants of the Christian faith. There are two basic categories of people: the saved and the lost.
Salmon River Breaks
And the Lord does not want anyone to die without a chance to repent (2 Peter 3:9). Even an obnoxious, overbearing, anti-social ladino like J.W.
First, put at least one such ladino person you know on your prayer list.
Second, think about his or her life from their point of view. What’s it like for them? I think of J.W. living in that little cabin, snowed in all winter. All alone. Thinking the world’s against him.
Third, the gospel will never make it to the ends of the earth until it reaches folks with a cantankerous Old West temper like J.W. … and the one(s) just as ornery on your list. What can you do today to reach out?
Copyright©1994
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TWEETABLES:
Do you know a ladino? Find out what this Old West term means and how it applies today: http://clicktotweet.com/fN66P
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Old West slang devotional by award-winning western author Stephen Bly: http://clicktotweet.com/tcjch
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Historical western novels by Stephen Bly available here: https://www.blybooks.com/product_category/historical-western-novels/
For more western devotionals by Stephen Bly, click this link: https://www.blybooks.com/category/steves-devotionals/
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