GOD GAVE US THE DESIRE TO RODEO TO BRING HIM AND US PLEASURE!

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What I want to tell each of you right now, from the bottom of my heart is God enjoys each of you. Please don’t forget this—God delights in his children. He loves us!  He loves helping us!  Just ask Him, He’ll tell you himself.

All of us will go through hard times, but God also wants to give us good times.  He wants to give us peace and joy and comfort.  He never wants to punish us!  He wants to comfort us in the hard times and lead us through them.

•     God is grieved that we, the competing members of the PRCA, have lost the joy of competition.  We have lost that enthusiasm we had for our sport by our striving.  We have gotten our eyes off of the author and perfecter of our faith Jesus Christ and have looked within ourselves to make this thing called life happen.
•     God delights in watching us use our talents and abilities to honor Him.  Cowboys, cowgirls, and spouses listen to this, God delights in watching competition in any rodeo arena when we are using the talents and abilities that He gave us to honor Him.
•     God grieves when we strive at competition.  We grieve God’s heart when we strive for perfection in life!
•     God grieves because He knows that we are missing the best of competition and the best of life.  He wants us to be pleased and at peace after every competition knowing that God was delighted to watch us.
•     Even when we blow it God delights in us.  We PRCA cowboys and cowgirls are destroying the joy of our lives when we strive at perfection in the arena.  Spouses grieve God, when we don’t delight to watch our other half compete to the glory of God.  Striving is a wrong dimension that we add to our practice and competition that isn’t necessary.  We can be fierce competitors without striving.  We have to be good and take our events seriously, we have to practice and practice hard, but we must learn to do it without striving.
•     When our winning comes with striving, the family structure begins to crumble.  This striving comes in the wife and in the competing husband.  It is ugly.
•     You see, our "god" has become the god of success and perfection, thinking that the answer is here.  We must repent and realize that success and perfection are idols in our life.  God Almighty, Jesus Christ, must be our focus and reason to perform. When we are motivated to do our best and work at being great because we delight our heavenly Father, we cease from striving and joy returns.  We, the members of the PRCA, have become controlled by our performance in the arena.  We must repent and be controlled by the Holy Spirit.

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The years of competition seem to drag us into this striving and our lives become so much less than what God wants.  We soon believe the lie that rodeo was worthless and a waste of life.  We can even believe we are failures or quitters.  All of these are lies that the enemy has encouraged us to believe to make us miserable. 

God delights in us; He gave us this desire and ability to compete.  We made it ugly by turning away from glorifying God and made it all about success and perfection.
 

•     God wants our work, that of rodeo competition, to be our praise and our worship to Him.  God wants us to do everything, heartily as unto Him.  May we repent and rodeo to glorify our Heavenly Father.
•     Bitterness can set into the life of seasoned rodeo families!  Bitterness is like the root of a weed, it infests every area of life.  We must repent and ask God to pull out that root of bitterness before it takes over our lives.
•     God is watching us in the arena of life and in the rodeo arena, which is much like a recent trip we took to San Diego.
•     As a grandmother of four, I sat on a cliff overlooking the ocean.  As these Colorado born children became captivated and were totally enjoying their adventure on the beach, I loved watching them!  Each child doing something different, but loving life and loving the adventure that God had given them for that day.  It was a refreshing sight.  I totally enjoyed watching them.

That is how God looks down on us, with joy and delight.

God wants his kids enjoying the adventure of life like my grand-kids were enjoying the ocean that day.

Rodeo, under God’s guidance should be a delightful adventure and a source of joy.

•     When was the last time we looked up into the sky and thanked God for the beautiful clouds and sunset?
•     When was the last time we enjoyed watching our husbands use his talents?
•     When was the last time we thanked God for the privilege of being married to a PRCA cowboy?
•     When was the last time we felt the joy of watching our husband compete; knowing our heavenly Father was delighted in us?

Many of you reading this may be incredibly weary after many years of the rodeo road. The incredible attack that the enemy of our soul uses on rodeo families is devastating.  The women feel so threatened that they want to go home, they want to be safe.  The men, who have so much gut and try, refuse to quit.  The communication between spouses becomes so very weak.  Often the wife goes home thinking she is safe and gets a job or a divorce.  The husband is controlled by his passion and perseverance to succeed in the arena and he stays on the road.  This brings great stress on any marriage and not only do Mom and Dad pay but so do the kids.

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There is hope in Jesus.  If you give Him a wholehearted chance, He will make something wonderful out of your lives.  If you will love him, He promises to work all of the junk and mistakes you both have made out for good. Only God knows how each family is to live. When we get serious with God, serious enough to hear Him speaking to us, we will know where He wants us to be.

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God loves you and He is able and willing to help you.