THE RAM AND THE COWBOY
A couple of years ago in the Rocky Mountains a bighorn ram approached the home of a man named Ed Bailey while he was watching football on television. The bighorn stopped suddenly, seeing its reflection in a plate glass window. Thinking it was another ram, the bighorn bowed its head, ready to charge. He backed up and immediately saw that the other ram backed up too. Every time he moved, his reflection moved. Finally after a three-hour duel, the ram shook his head and charged full force into the window, knocking himself unconscious.
That bighorn ram reminds me of a few people I've known through the years. What is there in some people that causes them to walk around ready to butt heads with anybody they meet--even though in the long run they are the loser for their negative attitude?
They are like a character in a silly joke I read sometime back. Two cowboys are talking about a third cowboy. "He's a real tough hombre," one of them says, "and quick on the trigger. He can shoot before his pistol clears his holster." His friend was impressed. "That is fast," he says, "if he can shoot before his pistol clears his holster. By the way, what's his name?" His friend answers with a smile, "Footless Frankie."
I guess all of us have shot ourselves in the foot by being too quick to criticize, too quick to condemn, to confront, to challenge, to chastise.
(From a sermon by King Duncan)