Faith……..Use it or Lose It!

June 4, 2015June 4, 2015 / Andy R Taylor / 2 Comments

I had an interesting thought the other day. You know, as believers, we’re supposed to be people of faith. It doesn’t always work out that way in real life, though. I must admit that I don’t exactly have it perfected either. I’m working on it, and I’m better than I used to be but still have a long ways to go.

We’ve been ‘given’ (Rom 12:3) ‘the measure of faith‘. It’s actually a measure of the same quality of faith the the Father, Himself, has. That’s a pretty big deal if you think about it. It’s no flimsy faith; it’s faith that’s full of power. That’s very Biblical, by the way. We have a measure of the same kind of faith that the Father exercised when he ‘spoke’ the world into being!

This faith that we’ve been given is there for a myriad of reasons. For one, it’ll help us to navigate the events of life, good and bad, in such a way that we prevail in every circumstance. With this faith we’re encouraged in the Bible to “heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons and communicate the good news to the poor”. But there are many people who actually never exercise their faith at all. It’s there lying dormant, but it’s there, nonetheless. It’s like having a fortune in our bank account but never writing a check on it.

What if we approached our faith like we do our vacation days with our work? Many companies give a week or two paid vacation to their employees. Some of those companies require that you use those vacation days before the end of the fiscal year. It’s use them-or lose them. Nobody really wants that to happen. I doubt the Lord looks at our faith like that. I’m sure He’s always blessed anytime we exercise our faith. But it wouldn’t hurt us to look at our faith that way. It might just motivate us to walk in faith a lot more.

It could mean more people saved, more people healed from diseases, more addictions broken, more marriages put back together, etc. Maybe we should view our faith from a “Use It or Lose It” standpoint!

Business = Finished!

June 1, 2015June 1, 2015 / Andy R Taylor / Leave a comment

If you’re not familiar with the Professional Bull Riders organization this post might not mean much to you. And if you’re not familiar with the PBR….maybe you should be. Bull Riding is the most extreme of all the extreme sports. If you have a disagreement on that thought, go get on a bull and, chances are, you’ll quickly change your mind. Bull Riding as a sport has evolved over the past 20 + years into a high-profile, spectator friendly sport that has made celebrities of the bull riders, as well as the bulls. Sports arenas around the country are filling up when the PBR comes to town much due to the overt, raw danger of the sport and the vanishing individualistic nature of the, authentic, American cowboy.

An event was held this past weekend in Decatur, Texas unlike any Bull Riding event ever before, and almost assuredly, will never happen again. “Unfinished Business” pitted eight of the most high-profile PBR Bull Riders in the organization’s history, all retired for a number of years, riding for a, winner take all, $160,000 payoff. Cody Custer and Mike White, PRCA World Champions; Tater Porter, J.W. Hart, PBR World Finals Champions; Justin McBride, Chris Shivers and Michael Gaffney all PBR World Champions and Ross Coleman, perennial PBR World Finals Qualifier.

To say that these men had ‘unfinished business’ in the arena couldn’t be further from the truth. These eight guys left it all in the arena every single time they ever competed, without exception. Their primary reason for coming out of retirement for this, once in a lifetime, event was in the name of charity. I don’t care who you are, you gotta appreciate that! *(consider that a couple of them are nearing 50 yrs of age!)

Shivers and Hart rode their bulls and split the $160,000. The other six didn’t complete their 8-second ride. But, just like always…..they gave it everything they had…..one last time! I care about Bull Riding; I’ve been directly involved with it in one way or another pretty much my whole life. I’d like to see Bull Riding continue to come to prominence as a sport. My reasons are personal. But I look at the field of bull riders today and I wonder who’ll take the place of these men. I don’t see very many out there on the radar screen, today, the caliber of these guys in the way of sheer effort….and the desire to be ‘ambassadors’ for the sport. The door’s wide open for some ‘young guns’ to step up!

Thank you Cody Custer, Mike White, Tater Porter, J.W. Hart, Justin McBride, Chris Shivers, Michael Gaffney and Ross Coleman….for showing unprecedented ‘class’ with every ride and every interview your entire career! Thanks from us older guys that never had the opportunity to ride for a million dollars.

Thanks for showing the rest of the world what the sport of Bull Riding is really about! You finished your business…..and you finished it well!!

Lives Matter!

May 27, 2015July 9, 2016 / Andy R Taylor / 1 Comment

Lots of conflict on the news lately. It seems that racial tension is nearly as high as it was in the ’60’s. I remember that. I actually thought we had made some major strides in overcoming that in the last few decades but it doesn’t take too many like Al Sharpton egging it on to get everyone stirred up again. In my opinion he’s used up way more than his fifteen minutes of fame!

The cry from communities like we’ve seen in Baltimore and Ferguson, MO is that “Black Lives Matter”. I could not agree more! It’s kind of a ‘no brainer’, huh? I saw a sign in a yard in a nearby town that says that “Police Lives Matter”. Agree again! The truth is, and only an idiot would argue otherwise, that all lives matter! I’m discouraged that in the greatest nation on the planet we’re even having this discussion. I don’t doubt that in many areas there are some strong prejudices and biases against minorities. I’m a country boy and I haven’t had to deal with that much, so I don’t consider myself an expert in the least. I just know it doesn’t work….it doesn’t work for anyone! It’s the classic ‘lose-lose’ situation!

I think we’ve gotta stop making it a ‘white’ issue, or a ‘black’ issue and make it a human being issue! “Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you” still works! I agree that it’s a deeper and more complex discussion and that there’s at least dozen or more points to be considered. But let’s not make it any more complicated than it already is.

If there’s anything positive going to happen, you and I should at least do our part. A good start is deciding that “Lives Matter”….. all of them! And anytime we see racial prejudices in our little world, we should step in, if possible, and be the voice of reason, righteousness and reconciliation. We should take the position of ‘peacemakers’ and see what happens. I know the Lord’ll bless the effort.

I doubt that many of my regular blog readers are racist…..hopefully none! So, in that sense….I’m preaching to the choir. But if you were to “Share” this post it might just hit someone that could make a huge difference. In the meantime, let’s all decide that “Lives Matter”!!

Branson to Cherokee – The Longest Night I Ever Spent

March 6, 2015January 23, 2022 / Andy R Taylor / 13 Comments

The year was 1979. The rodeo season was in full swing. Denny Flynn and I were traveling together and we were both having a successful season so far. We were to ride in Branson, Missouri and leave immediately to head for Cherokee, Iowa where we’d ride the next afternoon.

As soon as we arrived in Branson I saw my good friend Roy Carter. The first thing out of his mouth was the devastating news that our friend Mick Whitely from Halfway, Oregon had been killed the night before in Inglewood, California. A bull had stepped in his chest with both feet and he died before he got to the hospital. Mick was a close friend; just a few weeks earlier he, Wacey Cathey and myself had spent nearly a week in the same hotel room in Edmonton, Alberta. How was I to know it would be the last time I’d see Mick?

But that wasn’t the end of the bad news in Branson that night. Brian Claypool, Gary ‘Moon’ Logan, Calvin Bunney and Lee Coleman, all Canadians, had left Cloverdale, BC in Brian’s private plane on their way to Las Vegas. After clearing customs in Salem, Oregon they were never heard from again. After an all-out intensive search no evidence of the guys or the plane was found. In fact, it was later in the year during hunting season that hunters happened on to the wreckage.

I didn’t know Bunney or Coleman; they were young and just starting their professional rodeo careers. But Brian Claypool was a great friend. We’d become friends soon after I cracked out in ’72. He was a great bull and bronc rider…one of the best, and the ‘fittest’ guy I ever knew. Gary Logan, or ‘Moon’ as we all called him, was also a good friend and great bareback rider. Just two weeks before there were two carloads of us staying at our ranch in Allison, Texas. The last day before we all left and went different ways Gary and I were working on a new pair of spurs of mine. Looking back it was a great day, always lots of laughs with Moon. It would be the last time I’d ever see him.

There’s an incredible camaraderie in the rodeo world, more like a brotherhood! It wasn’t just that we’d lost some friends, we’d lost family! Denny and I headed out for Cherokee. I’m not ashamed to say I shed a lot of tears that night. We stopped at a truck stop somewhere and I called Julie…just to hear her voice. I called my dad hoping that he’d say something to make me feel better. I didn’t want to go to Cherokee, I didn’t care anything about riding bulls. I just wanted to go home…but we were already committed. I guess in a lot of ways I grew up some that night.

My traveling partner and best friend Denny Flynn and I talked a lot about the guys, and a lot about life that night. We both had our turn at driving but I don’t think either one of us slept a wink. We rolled into Cherokee, not very fresh and not thinking much about bull riding. It was the longest night I ever spent.

Click this link to hear a song written about this by one of our rodeo friends, Ivan Daines:

Are You God’s Servant??

February 26, 2015April 7, 2015 / Andy R Taylor / 1 Comment

It’s kind of a trick question; and I know what most people around the church today would say. Without a doubt, nearly everyone would say, “Yes, of course I’m a servant”, to that question. But if we’re talking identity, then the answer is not just a little wrong…..it’s a lot wrong! And I think it’s one of the big problems with Christianity today.

Growing up we lived on a 10,000 acre ranch in the Texas Panhandle. My dad leased the ranch; we didn’t own it but we had to run it like we did own it. Over the course of the 25 years we lived there we had a number of hired-hands, some of them good, some not so good. But my mom and dad, Cliff and Charlene Taylor, and my brother, Monty and I…..always worked harder than the hired-hands. We did the things that the hired-hands didn’t want to do, or had left undone. We went the ‘extra mile’, so to speak, in seeing that the work was done around the ranch that needed to be done. We all worked longer hours and constantly carried the weight of knowing that the ranch had to make money or we wouldn’t. It didn’t matter to the hired-hands.

In the story of the ‘prodigal son’, the boy comes home and tries to tell his dad (God) that he’s willing to be a hired-hand. But the Father would have none of it! There are hired-hands in the story….but this boy isn’t one of them….he’s a ‘son’!

In our Christian lives we’re going to do a lot of serving, …..but the Father never intended for us to have the identity of a hired-hand! He’s hand-picked us as His own sons and daughters……we should start acting like it!

VIP #1 Booger Bryant

February 6, 2015October 20, 2020 / Andy R Taylor / 14 Comments

Well, for starters, just the name “Booger” gets your attention, right!? Booger Bryant could be described in a lot of ways; Cowboy, Bull Rider, Bull Rope Maker, Believer…..A Man’s-Man! Booger lived in Hagerman, New Mexico, not far from Roswell. He was probably 8-10 years older than me when I started my professional rodeo career at 18. Back in those days when you were a ‘rookie’ and just starting out most of the older, seasoned cowboys wouldn’t talk to you until you had ‘paid your dues’ and proven yourself. But Booger wasn’t that way at all, at least with me.There’s no telling how tough Booger really was but he didn’t try at all to push that persona. But you could obviously tell that he wouldn’t get pushed around by anyone.

In the mid to late ’70’s there was a surge of Christianity through professional rodeo. And as it often happens with people who first experience salvation, there was a lot more zeal than common sense displayed by a lot of these rodeo people. Many of them were in-your-face with it; they meant well but to be honest it turned me off and I avoided most of them the best I could. I’d gotten saved in a countywide crusade in Wheeler, Texas in 1974, but I pretty much kept it to myself and wasn’t doing a very good job of living it out.

But, Booger Bryant was different than the others. I knew he was a Christian, but it was different, I wanted to be around him. We had quite a few visits about the Lord. He hardly ever initiated them, it was mostly me. I knew he’d be ‘straight-up’ with me; I knew he wouldn’t be pushy about it; he didn’t have some subtle agenda like the rest of them. I knew I could trust him. He knew I wasn’t doing a good job of walking it out but he never, ever mentioned it. He stood his ground between the over-zealous believers and the hard-ass, old-school cowboys who didn’t want any of it, and would dang sure tell you about it if they needed to!

He got cancer but never complained about it; he’d just say he was trusting the Lord with it. He fought the good fight for sure but finally went to his reward. He left behind his wife, Bonnie and a little boy, Blu. He made my bull ropes for several years, he was always a trusted friend, kinda like a big brother I didn’t have. But most of all he showed me what a ‘real’ Christian ought to be like and his impact on my life was deep, even though I didn’t know it at the time.

I never got the chance to talk to Booger after my life had really ‘made the turn’ in ’84, he was already gone. But I did get the chance in the mid-’90’s to tell his son, Blu, who was leading the world bull riding standings at the time, how much I admired him and how much of an impact his dad had on my life. It felt pretty good!

I’ll forever be grateful to Booger Bryant for helping to show me the Way!