From the Home Place

November 21, 2025

Good morning all! It’s 31 degrees with heavy fog right now, headed for 51 for a high today. Looks like another great day for working outside.

Around 1967 I played with riding bulls. Now that is a sport I would never suggest anyone to “play” at, but I did and by God’s grace, I survived. I never was very serious about it, in fact, I didn’t even like it.

I would enter in a rodeo here and there, never really excited about riding. My friends were all “so pumped” to get on a bull, and most of them ended up getting hurt. I think maybe I was too afraid of what I had seen bulls do to cowboys.

One bull that really terrified me belonged to a Wyoming stock contractor, so he was at a lot of local shows, was a big Brahma bull named Pale Face. He was a dark grey color with a white patch on his face. His routine was always the same: He would jump for the sky when the chute gate opened, hit the ground and start into a really flat spin to the right.

I rode right-handed, so the spin was actually to my advantage. It was the lunge out the gate that worried me. Unless you were really stout, (which I never was), the lunge out the gate would slide a feller back off of his rope and the spin would cast the attempted rider off the back end of ‘ol Pale Face. The problem was that then he would hunt his cowboy down and try to stop his victim into the dirt!

To ride Pale Face, you had to lean forward excessively during the first lunge, placing a cowboy’s face in an extreme danger of taking a bite out of one of the big brahma’s antlers. And then you had to stay way forward during his very flat spin, so he didn’t slide you out the back door.

Well, I am very happy to say, I never did draw Pale Face, because I quit riding before I did. The odds were that if a feller stayed with it long enough you were going to draw him. And then the odds were very high that he was going to win and then the odds were extremely high that someone was going to get hurt, and that someone wouldn’t be Pale Face.

So here is our lesson for today, as almost impossible as Pale Face was to survive, so is Satan and his tactics. Just like with bull riding, spiritual warfare isn’t something that anyone should “play” at. This is very serious business. I know, I’ve been there many times.

I have to admit; it frightens me how many folks think the dark side is a playground. It is not! When we humans are in the presence of evil, that evil has only one intention – HARM! Demons are never there to play a little game and then everyone can skip safely through life. Demons imprint themselves upon humans, constantly attempting to “divide and destroy.” This is not a game!

Be careful what movies you watch, be careful what books you read, be careful what you submit your mind and body to. Demonic influence is real, and very dangerous. There is a reason that the Bible tells us to “flee from evil.” Because that evil will influence a human every time. James 4:7 tells us, “Submit therefore to God, Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”

You see, just as I knew that sooner or later, I was going to draw Pale Face if I kept trying to ride bulls, I also know that the only way to “resist” the devil is to stay away from his influence. As a Christ-follower we are to “pursue righteousness.” The best way to prevent getting tromped by a bull is to stay away from trying to ride the bull. The best way to “resist the devil” is to stay away from any kind of evil influence.

There is a saying among bull riders, “If you ride bulls, it isn’t a matter of ‘if’ you will get hurt, the question is ‘when’ will you get hurt and how badly will you get hurt.” If we mess with evil, we will get hurt, badly!

Timothy encourages us to “pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness.”

In pursuit with you, Neal