“Just don’t fall outta the truck” was the last piece of advice Bud gave me before stepping on the gas. Because of that, my hands began to sweat so much that holding on to the side felt like grabbing grease, my shoes suddenly had no grip, and I just knew that he had a flat or the shocks were gone on my side and the bed of the truck tilted down like a slide at a theme park. And so began my introduction to feeding buffalo at a wildlife preserve.
Now I grew up on a farm. When you feed cows they mosey up to the barn like they’re walking through quicksand. But buffalo storm at food with the purpose of devouring! Hence the need to not fall outta the truck!
My job was to take pictures while the other person threw out the feed. uh huh. “Whose dumb idea was this”, kept running through my mind.
Before I ever saw the first buffalo, I heard them coming. It was like what the pins at the end of a bowling lane must hear, and the same anticipation of an eventual strike! rumble rumble rumble and then the small dust storm. As my eyes intensely searched through the cloud of dust for a big furry creature, my heart started to race like the old pickup I was trying desperately to stay within. And then, like a football player bursting through the pep rally sign, those over-sized thick furry heads cut through the dust and came charging toward the truck full on!
One of my favorite films is Dances with Wolves. Great cinematography! Ever watch the special features of how they shot the buffalo hunt? Whoa Nelly! Exciting and Scary! Capturing on film a huge herd of stampeding buffalo while trying to keep them from not running over any actors, horses, or for that matter the guy holding the camera . . . quite a little rodeo!
So here I am in my own little Dances with Buffalo movie. Dust flying in my face, my feet scrambling for some stability in the bed of the pickup, spitting out stray flying buffalo feed, and desperately trying to focus my camera on that wild hairy creature storming the truck! I just get the hang of this when Bud yells back “Hang On!” Suddenly he u-turns on a cow patty and starts head first into the herd! Having recovered from being slung to the other corner of this understandably beat up old Ford, I turn to the front of the cab while bracing for a head on collision with one of these large bulls and realized we just parted the waters of a sea of fur. The buffalo herd split down the middle letting us pass! Then, before I could close my gaping mouth, Cowboy Bud yelled “Watch this!” Hitting the brake and making my rear drop to the bed of the truck quicker than a lead brick, I just knew we were done for. My mind racing for all the quick get-aways or all the reasons I would have to give the doctors to explain the hoof marks across my face, I squinted into the now settling dust from our rapid stop (thinking squinting would help ease the pain of eating buffalo fur). But to my amazement, when the dust did settle, there stood the herd about 10 feet from the truck, waiting for our next move.
Huh? I had expected that the wildlife preserve CSI team would be peeling me up with eye tweezers and putting me in an evidence bag. But instead, Cowboy Bud just slowly took us back to the barn as we threw out the last of the feed and the buffalo eventually wandered off.
So my point? Well most of us are trucking through life trying to do what is right and with kindness and care, when out of the dust comes a world of wrong charging at us like a herd of buffalo trying to mow us down fast and hard while we’re just trying to hang on and stay focused. It comes in all different ways, shapes, places, times and people. For example, I’m out here trying to live by the foundation of the Bible and in today’s society, well that ain’t popular or politically correct. And so there are times when this world tries to let me know that in some very harsh ways. Now I’m not about to preach a sermon so just hang with me, it’s some common sense that comes in handy.
Here’s what I learned . . . you got 3 options when the world-of-out-of-control-charging-buffalo come at you:
run away
face and attack
or stand still.
Option 1: you can try to out run it and hide and just live like you want. Ask Jonah what he found out about that as he floated along in that belly of the great fish . . . hint – it’s just gonna follow. And might I add, the fish vomited out Jonah, not a pretty picture (stinky).
So that brings me to Option 2: face and attack.
When Bud turned that truck around, suddenly the big furry snorting kicking fierce creatures were faced with something coming at them. Not what they expected. You can ask Goliath about that when a young boy named David came charging at him with just a slingshot and some rocks. But that actually makes perfect sense; it throws the world off guard. Read I Samuel 17: 48, I’m telling you Goliath would have been one big ole buffalo coming at David, but it says that David ran quickly toward the battle. And . . . he won! We’ve got to dig our feet in, put our shoulder down, fix our eyes on the battle, hold strong to the flame of truth, and CHARGE! We’ve got the same God with us as David did. What’s the hold up? Go get ‘em!
Oh yea, Option 3? Well as Cowboy Bud might have said, “don’t just stand there or by jenkies you’re gonna get smushed!”
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