Stuck

Growing up working feedlots and ranches I found myself frequently exposed to the elements. The wisdom imparted by Luke Bryan tells us that, “rain makes corn. Corn makes whiskey. Whiskey makes my baby feel a little…” Well. You know the rest.

Far be it from me to argue with the wisdom of Professor Luke, but in my experience rain makes mud, and snow makes drifts which melt and become mud, and drifts and mud provide an opportunity to get stuck. Trucks. Tractors. Dump trucks. Four wheelers. Front-end loaders. You name it, I’ve gotten it stuck.

I know the walk of shame well. “Crap, I’m stuck.” So I bail out of the cab and begin the walk. It could be twenty feet to the shop or it could be two miles to the home place, but suddenly I’m on foot with nothing but my condemnation echoing around my head. “If you wouldn’t have gunned it and buried it.” “If you would have taken that high side on the right.” “Four-wheel drive doesn’t mean sh!t.”

You finally arrive at your destination cold/hot/windblown/drenched and now it’s the worst part. You have to ask for help. “Hey, Dave…”

“Let me guess, Scott. You’re stuck…”

“I’m stuck.”

“I’ll get the tractor. You find a chain.”

Eventually, I’d get unstuck, but not until I was on the receiving end of a ration of crap from co-workers and friends. Stuck was just part of life.

Since I left the country of my youth, I have continued to get stuck. But it has taken something far greater than a John Deere 4840 and a log chain (and a snarky co-worker) to pull me out. It has taken almighty God. That’s a big drift you’re in if you need God to pull you out. That in which I have become stuck is something far mightier than mud or snow. I have gotten stuck in myself.

I bet you have been there, too. Uncertain. Afraid. Lost. At a crossroads. Out of time, money, patience, and hope. You’re stuck. No John Deere 4840. No chain. Just the mud and the muck and the mire of your own creation. I write this as much for me as I do you.

In candor, I’m kind of stuck now. For the last two years, I have focussed on a campaign and congress and what I thought would be a different direction for my life. I just knew God had called me. I retired from the radio business. I mobilized my friends who committed their time, talent, treasure, and personal reputations. I put in quite a chunk of my own treasure, too. How could I be so wrong?! I gave it my all. But things just didn’t fall into place.

The website you read now was taken down. Podcasts pulled. I spent a great deal of time making myself a smaller target so the guys on the other side would have less to shoot at. I shrank at the very time I needed to become larger. It didn’t work out. I have said this a lot over the last couple of years…

It is never as you imagine, but always as God intends.

The wisdom of me

As I write this, I am searching for my voice. “My words.” My direction. Pleading to God to reveal His mission for me. I am still your Weld County Commissioner – and that is a job I love. But in times like this, when the world seems to spin out of control, I think God needs people of character and common sense to stand up, get big, and be bold.

So I will do what I have done a thousand times before. Bail out of the cab. Walk to the shop. And ask God to bring the tractor. I’ll soon be unstuck – but not after a little teasing from the Creator of the Universe.

I shared these words this morning because I needed to write them and maybe you needed to read them. I’ll leave you with a prayer that the trusty Bible app fed me before I started writing…