NOTHING AT PEACE ABOUT HIM
On a cool, April morning in the western mountains of north-central Idaho, I was surprised to see my neighbor, Dupree Davis, huffing beside his pickup truck, next to the gravel road, with sweat dripping off his face. He looked fit to be tied and all steamed up. Nothing at peace about him.
“Dupree, you’re working considerable hard this early in the morning,” I teased him.
“Work?” he groaned. “I’ve been running, that’s what I’ve been doing!”
“Well,” I continued, “I’m proud to see you interested in a little exercise.”
“Exercise?” he fumed. “I’m running for my life! That dadgum bald-faced cow decided not to let me doctor her calf. She charged at me like she’d been vaccinated with a cattle prod. I hustled it across the corral with her trying to pick my back pocket with her teeth. If I hadn’t thrown my hat in her face, she’d be out there trampling me into mud right now. Ain’t nothing worse than a mamma cow on the peck.”
I drove off laughing and wondering how Dupree would recover his hat.
Old West and Walk of Faith
Dupree made me think about that term of being on the peck. In the Old West it was an expression that meant a person or animal was fighting mad.
It seems to me that Christians should never be on the peck. Oh, there are certainly some things in life worth fighting for. But the Old West term connotates a sense of reckless, unthinking anger, that is, lashing out at all in sight.
The key ingredient of a disciplined faith-filled life is peace and self-control. In other words, Spirit control. When anger controls you, it’s a cinch the Holy Spirit isn’t.
Right Living
We might need to express righteous anger from time to time, to motivate us to accomplish the Lord’s will. But as a rule, anger should never be allowed to possess us. Sometimes it helps if we keep our focus in the right direction.
The Bible says, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:18).
Our first reaction to confrontation should be to seek a peaceful response to the situation. That doesn’t mean we overlook sin, put up with blasphemy, or ignore injustice, in the name of peace. But it does mean our basic personality must be that of a peacemaker.
Anything less than that sidetracks us from following Jesus, being His faithful disciple, and opens the gate for other virtues to escape as well.
Stephen Bly
Circa 1995
Man Running Away Image by VideoPlasty.com from Pixabay
Peaceful Cow Mama & Calf Image by Mary Connealy from Pixabay
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“On the Peck” audio podcast by award-winning western author Stephen Bly. Sponsored by BlyBooks.com Legacy Series.
Sign Up on BlyBooks.com on blog page to receive RSS feed by email for podcast blog notices. Related blog article with podcast embed will arrive weekly. Look to the right of the LINK PAGE for “Subscribe to the Blog via Email” and “Enter your email address”.
Would greatly appreciate if you a) SUBSCRIBE, b) RATE, c) REVIEW the podcast. FULL PODCAST INFO: https://bit.ly/3xCxckS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No comments yet.