Sowing and Reaping

"We all just go to the worms." He said, "Just like that old dead cow or a horse." And I think he really believed that. He had been born in an era where a man was judged by his toughness, and no one who had ever known him would question that he was tough. He had ridden bucking horses his whole life and used his natural ability at it to get him away. No place in particular but just away.

As a small boy, he was forced to go to parochial school by his parents and though it stuck with his siblings, it never stuck with him. He rebelled at every turn. It didn't help that many of the authority figures he was exposed to were dictatorial, overbearing, and even cruel. When he did poorly on school assignments he was not just given bad grades, he was punished and punished with great severity. He said, "They tried to beat that stuff into me but I wasn't having none of that...(expletive)! He didn't like the structure and he didn't respond well to authority but most of all, he hated being indoors. He would rather have been out with the horses. Not the gentle horses found in the good saddle string on the ranches he grew up on but those sometimes called the "bold unwilling", and the more they bucked the better as far as he was concerned. Though most cowboys, good or bad, were in no way interested in riding what was called the rough string, he was more than happy to fight the rough string every day. His stubbornness turned to toughness, and his toughness eventually turned to bitterness.

He traveled the rodeo circuit as soon as he was old enough to walk out the door and head down the road. As soon as he was big enough, he left home and that, "_____" school behind. He said everyone who stayed behind lost everything, but he didn't 'cause he made it in the rodeo. Well, "made it" is a relative term, you see, he was never terribly famous, though he ran with and rode with some of the best and most famous rodeo stars of his day. The record books are full of the names of his closest friends, however, his name was always just off the end of the page when it came to the list of the best at the finals every year. They won and won until their names were of the household variety, while he won just enough to keep going down the road and keep him from having to go back home. He had married, more than once, but those relationships ended badly just like every one he ever had with anyone. He was quick and easy to make friends but just as quick and easy to burn his bridges. Burning bridges may be what he was best at.

The day I met him, he hadn't spoken to his siblings or their families for years. He was on the downhill slide of an illness that even he wasn't tough enough to lick. If meanness could beat cancer, he could have annihilated it. But cancer can't even be phased by meanness. It is a great equalizer when it comes as hard as it did for him. After months of doctor's visits and treatments across the country they finally sent him home to die. They actually would have continued his treatments but he finally told them all, in no uncertain terms, what they could do with their treatments and went home. He could look out the front door at his horses and wait out his last days until he, "went to the worms" as he said, every chance he got to say it.

I visited him upon the request of a sweet lady that found something good in everything and everybody she saw, even him. She was too full of God's love, grace, and mercy to write him off as so many had done. So, reluctantly, I went. First with a good friend, so in case he tried to shoot me there was someone to dial 911, and later with my wife because she was deeply concerned for him as well. Both times we were met with his profane way of "politely",he said, "disagreeing with us". It was plain to see that he did not care about God and cared even less about Jesus and The Bible. I tried to convince him of my faith but he believed it to be based only upon fear and weakness. We left both times with mixed emotions and though part of me was angry I was mostly sad. Sad because the damage had been done long before we arrived. This man had experienced the wrath and judgement of religious people and mistook it for the wrath and judgement of God. By the time he would experience love, grace, and mercy, he was so scarred and calloused, they couldn't break through the crusty old hide of his soul. Less than a week later, he died. I will never doubt the possibility of a last minute wooing of the Holy Spirit that could save a soul even as rebellious as his, but, barring that, I am afraid his eternity is lost.

As I have said and studied time and time again, God's word tells us He will not be mocked. Whatever a man sows, he will reap. I rejoice when I think of the harvest that is available to us, but I weep when I see those who had that reward at their fingertips and let it slip away. The old man said he just didn't believe all that stuff. I bet he does now.