Don't Bring a Quarter to a Gun Fight

As a boy, I remember seeing a man come to speak with our class during a presentation day. I loved presentation days. It meant we got to sit around and listen and even if the guy was talking about something boring, like wearing helmets on bikes or not taking candy from strangers, we got to do something besides sitting in a stuffy classroom. I couldn't have been more than 6 or 7 years old, my hair combed perfectly with a crease off to the side, my goofy smile with a few teeth missing here and there, and my strange heighth (even back then I was a sasquatch for my age). Our school was having a "western day," with everything from hay rides to lasso contests and BBQ. Like I said, though, I didn't really care a whole lot about that, I just liked that we didn't have to sit in class all day. We moved from station to station, learning all about the wild west and a bunch of other country-related stuff, of which I don't remember, with the exception of this man.

He was a tall, scrawny man with a handlebar mustache that dipped low on his chin. His hair was coarse, plastered down by his bulky, wild cowboy hat. His leather jacket covered his flanal shirt that was tucked into his starched, brown jeans. His belt buckle was huge as I recall, but none of his apparel caught my eye except for one thing. Hooked around his belt loop, clutching tightly to his hip was a silver pistol. It stole my attention as it did with all the other boys around me. We watched as he pulled it out of the thick, leather holster and raised it up in the air. We leaned forward with intense excitement as he tossed a quarter up into the air and shot the pistol, the sound of the gun clashing through the air. The coin plumeted to the earth and in the coin was a hole the size of a bullet. Right then and there, I thought guns were the coolest and I wanted to be able to do that one day. That initial shot never stopped resonating with me.

Years later, here I am shooting guns like a madman. I am somewhat of a conesure, as I am sure I have mentioned before on this blog. As a kid, my dad would take me to the range and he instilled in me a respect for guns as well as a passion for them. Today, I go to gun conventions, go to gun ranges, watch shows based on guns, speak about guns on a regular basis, and even spoke at a business/economic workshop about, you guessed it, guns! I am a little obessed, I realize this, but it's not called a passion for nothing. I consider it a gift, one area of my life that I excel in.

Ephesians 4:11-13 says this in the Message translation: "He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christ's followers in skilled servant work, working within Christ's body, the church, until we're all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God's Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ." God has given out different passions for each of us, no matter how unconventional they may be- singing, dancing, writing, speaking, selling, driving, shooting- all of which have the fascinating potential to be made into something awesome. When someone mentions "using your talents for the Kingdom of God," I often wonder what that means. How do I do that? In truth, I believe it means that you should enjoy what you do. There is a book out there called "Strength Finder 2.0" which talks about developing your strengths over developing your weakness. It reasons that using your strengths compels you to greater heights where as dealing with your weaknesses only fill you with stress. In their book Jim and Casper Go to Church, Jim Henderson and Matt Casper talk about how we often focus our spiritual life to become a one-stop-shop for God instead of using what we are gifted with, our strengths. Too often, we find people who aren't necessarily disgruntled with life, but just average. They are glazed over with indifference and filled with an absense of consideration for others. It seems that this "average" mentality is a result of not using your strengths and thus not doing what you enjoy on a day to day basis. They simply feel unfulfilled, a feeling Christians often feel in their walk. We like to dwell in our weaknesses, but in 2 Corinthians 12:10 God assures us that "When you are weak, I am strong." Life is covered, whether you are struggling or sailing, so why not sail?

My point is about finding your strengths through finding your inspiration. We cannot be everything at once. We cannot be a one-stop-shop for everybody's needs, but we often try to solve the world's problems as a one man band. One of my strengths is shooting, and it was a strength I discovered by inspiration. Likewise, we each have an intergral part in the kingdom to play, a place we each have to stand in the body, but I doubt we will find that place if we don't have our inspiration. Like DaVinci had his board to paint a Mona Lisa, like VanGough had his starry night to gaze upon, so the Master Artist has us to shape and mold-- clay in the potter's hands. So my prayer this week is that you find your inspiration from the Father much like I found my inspiration from the man at my school. May you sit at his feet and listen with intense excitement at his words and may they encourage you to strive for higher places.

As for the inspiration in my life, the funny thing was, the coin already had a hole in it. 7 year old kids don't realize that a man can't just shoot a loaded gun on a school campus so he used blanks and a pre-shot quarter. It didn't stop me though and I doubt that if I knew that back then, I would be any less impressed.

KB

The Desert Eagle

Thank God for the Second Amendment. The founding fathers knew how important it was to the American goodwill to blow crap up every once and while- it relieves so much stress! I am, as you might tell, an avid fan of the right to bear arms and an enthusiast when it comes to anything gun related. My father and I are into looking at what new guns we can purchase and what kind of targets we can destroy. Our forte' are hand guns. I have shot just about everything from dingy .22's to the big boy handguns. So when the gun convention came to Roswell this year, my father and I jumped, skipped, and hopped our way into a host of NRA, weapon wielding cowboys, always good for laugh if you're into the Jeff Foxworthy Redneck stuff. We saw some stuff we liked, other stuff we didn't l

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ike, but our appetite was whetted by what we saw towards the end of the show. The Desert Eagle, .44 magnum, semi-automatic handgun. The barrel of this weapon is the size of my forearm and it weighs several pounds. I added a picture of a smaller model just to give you an idea of the capacity of this thing. It is huge, no doubt about that. It is powerful, no doubt about that. It is impressive, no doubt about that either. So we bought it.

Out at the range, we pick up the bullets for this thing (about the size of my little finger mind you), and loaded them carefully, almost reverently into the chamber. I stood back as my father gleefully sauntered up to the line like he was Clint Eastwood with less hair. He raised the gun up high, squeezed the trigger gingerly, and let the first shot rip. Standing 20 yards away, I could feel the sound wave hit my chest. Of course, my dad and I look at each other, started grunting loudly in approval, and danced around the desert like a bunch of weirdos, but I've never seen anything quite like it. Then it was my turn. I raise the weapon, squeeze the trigger, then remembered seeing fire explode out the side of it, a cartridge fly out, and peg me, flaming hot, right between the eyes. In pain, I knelt down, let out a cry of pain, then a cry of joy, another cry of pain, then some more joy. Best thing I've ever shot. Before the day was done, the gun had blown up cans, Clorox bottles, and sheared through an iron spinner target with ease. Indeed, a man's man must have built this weapon.

So yeah, I know a little about guns. I also know how to spot a wanna-be, gun lover a mile away. They think they know stuff about guns, but really, they are morons. I don't mean to be insulting... well, kind of... but I also mean to make the point of how idiotic it is to not know what you are doing. I grew up with a reverence towards guns pounded into me at a young age. Little 6 year old Kyle was out there with his dad, shooting piddly guns and squinting when it went off. My dad would show me how I should hold it, aim, and especially not squint when I shoot. I respected the gun and knew what I was doing even then. So now, when I see a couple of homies buying a civil war gun at a gun show with the intention of shooting it, I call them morons since if they knew anything about guns, it's that you don't shoot a 100 year old revolver... EVER! It's dangerous to not know what you are doing more than anything else.

But isn't that how we end up doing things sometimes? We think we know our P's and Q's about things when in reality, we rarely ever keep ourselves in check. How foolish. When we run headlong into a crowd knowing absolutely nothing about what we believe, we end up hurting ourselves more than we hurt anybody else. Basically put, it's getting cocky. "I don't need to read a Bible every once and a while; I already know all the stories." "I don't need to listen to this message; I know what the speaker is gunna say anyways!" Then we aim, we squeeze the trigger, and hope that the shell doesn't explode in our face or worse, misfire and hit something or someone we shouldn't have hit.

Guns need to be cleaned, oiled, tended for, checked over, and be in hands that know what they are doing before they ever get fired. The irony is, though, that when we get so confident in the way we do things today, we hardly ever focus on why we do them or who we do them for. You clean a gun so it won't jam up or misfire. You go to the range to make sure your aim is straight and your gun isn't broken. You take the gun apart to not only clean it better, but ensure the parts are working correctly. Yet translate that to our lives, and we hardly ever clean, inspect, or secure the parts of our lives that need it most. We overlook our everyday routines of praying or giving unto others because they are so basic and mundane, we disregard the necessity of maintenance. If you want to see an example of this in the Bible, read 1 Samuel 5-7 and see how the Israelites got cocky and lost their most precious treasure. They figured since the Ark of the Covenant, or God, was winning all their battles, they would place it out in front of them and not even fight. When the Philistines came running by, lazy Israelites farting around, they grabbed the Ark and took it with them. The Israelites lost sight of what was important, they didn't keep their hearts in check and lost nearly everything in one, fatal swoop.

So here is to never letting your guard down. No matter how mundane things may get, it is never worth losing everything over to just let your guard down. Here is to understanding how vital everything we do in Christ is. We should never lose focus on the prize, never forget the sacrifice made for us. Also, here is to Bubba Gump at the Roswell Gun Show, the one with the police baton and brass knuckles- you are weird and should not be allowed near guns.

KB