From the Home Place

January 14, 2026

Well, it’s 30 degrees here in Lusk right now, headed for a high of 53, with only 30 mph wind gusts. But for the next three days the wind is supposed to blow. Sounds like more dust and dry.

Allow me to work with this pressure idea for one more day, please. You see, I strongly believe that God created horses and people to both use pressure in a positive way. First, let’s just take a look at horses: I’ve never ridden two with the exact same personality. Every horse, and every person, have their own personality and characteristics. You are you, with a different set of fingerprints, a different mind-set and a different response to life than those around you.

You see, it isn’t what happens to us that makes us different, it how we respond to that which happens to us that makes us different. Some folks feel the need to be in control with everything planned out, while another person within the same house, same community, same era of life, will be easy going, taking things as they come. Two people in the exact same time and circumstance, yet two individual people with two different responses to pressure.

I’ve seen a batch of colts, born to the same stallion, and out of mares with the same bloodline, and every colt will be different than the rest of their siblings when you start applying pressure in their training process.

I once broke a pair of black mares, full sisters, one year apart in age. I worked with the first one for thirty days and she was ready to go back to her home ranch, where she became the best friend of the rancher’s eight-year-old daughter. That mare’s full sister, was a bucking, fighting, renegade. It didn’t matter how I tried to work with her, she fought it hard. I rode her all summer long and finally sent her home. The oldest son of the outfit was sure enough cowboy and he and that mare made a pile of money team roping around the country. She fit his personality and the two of them sure enough were a great team, yet no one else could get along with her.

For me, I want a horse that learns to respond to leg pressure. I prefer to ride a horse way more with me legs and feet, than with my hands. Like when I’m roping in the branding pen, I want my horse to respond to my leg pressure to move sideways to give me that correct shot at a calf’s legs.

Not only are horses and humans very similar in that each one is an individual, we both have the same way of responding to pressure: either flight or fight. Remember the black mares mentioned above? One went with flight, in that she quickly learned to move away from pressure, while her full sister used the “fight” method of responding to pressure. And guess what, each of us will use our natural response method as well!

Think of Jacob and Essau, two brothers growing up with the same parents, in the same home, at the same time, with two different responses to life. Essau used “flight” as his way of learning. He moved away to become the man God wanted him to be. Jacob, well he was the “fight” man. Jacob’s early years were filled with constant conflict. He even tried to “fight” with God.

Let’s bring this parade to a close: every person in your life is an individual. As such, you have to work with each one differently because each one responds to pressure differently. Let’s say you go to church on Sunday and while there, you meet someone for the first time. You visit with them for twenty minutes, each one of you applying pressure to the relationship with simple comments – usually questions – and body language. Depending upon how each of your respond to those questions and comments, you will either walk away feeling like you have just made a friendship that you are now willing to fight for, or you will walk away from that other person before there is an argument – “fight.” We all respond to pressure differently with different people.

So, how do you respond to the pressure of Romans 5:3-5? Do you, like that good rope horse, respond quickly and favorably, or do you fight against the pressure that God is attempting to use to refine your character?

Your choice, but remember that you and those around you get to live with your choice!

Responding well to pressure with you, Neal