HOLINESS AND THE BULL

". . . renew a right spirit within me . . ."  Psalm 53:10

What does holiness and bull-riding have to do with one another?  Is this a penetrating question on your heart and mind these days? :-)   Actually, I never thought about it until reading Hubert Harriman and Bary Callen’s Color Me Holy (Aldersgate Press, 2013, p.55).  Unlike many Christian writers who use sports metaphors for illustrations to  underscore their points, Harriman and Callen bypass football, baseball and golf and go straight for rodeo and with good result in regard to teaching the idea of holiness of heart and life.  Here’s what they say . . .

 “One of the wildest things we know is watching a rodeo, especially the bull-riding contest.  The attempts to throw off the rider are incredible.  How different this is from the steer-lassoing contest where the horse thinks only of working for its master.  The difference is in submission.  The horse could be fully trained because it had submitted its will to the owner’s will – something unlike those bulls.”

Harriman and Callen hit the proverbial nail on the head.  Discipling believers is especially difficult with Christians who are inclined to kick.  When their will is pre-eminent and when they resist God’s leading they buck against learning and growth.  They dig in to being “the bucking bull or bronco of the rodeo with no surrender.”  In contrast, when there is full surrender to the will and ways of God, amazing things happen.  This is what happened when Abraham obeyed God, when Moses followed God’s direction, when Gideon took obedient steps of faith, and when David prayed “Restore me to the joy of your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit” (Psalm 51:12).

When we stop kicking, let the bull go, and surrender ourselves to the will of God, amazing things happen.  Holiness is possible, because holiness thrives on a willing spirit.  Create in me that willing spirit, O Lord!