The Bullet Proof Man

WESTERN WISDOM  Season 4, Episode 009  "The Bullet Proof Man" audio podcast by award-winning western author Stephen Bly. Sponsored by BlyBooks.com Legacy Series.  Recorded at Cannon Beach Christian Conference Center, Oregon, August 30th, 1995.

"Becoming a Bulletproof Man" blog post article found here:  https://www.blybooks.com/2022/07/bulletproof-man/

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Transcript

Bulletproof Man
Stephen Bly
Cannon Beach Christian Conference Center
August 30, 1995 

I remember picking up a newspaper headlining a bulletproof abortion clinic in Reno NV. It had been built expecting trouble and protests and who knows what else. This place looked like a fortress with thick concrete walls, two-foot reinforcement steel, two-foot-thick concrete. lt his almost like there was a little security, but in each corner there the building jetted out a little so you could look down all the walls with security cameras and see what was approaching. The parking lot was underneath the building so you could park and drive right into the building. Then a security door included bulletproof glass for this bulletproof abortion clinic.  

I’m going to use bulletproof in the same way you talk about a bulletproof horse. An 18-year-old fan who’s a senior wrote to me because she was going away to college. She’s applying at different colleges but she’s worried about what to do with her horse. She said, “I probably ought to sell him, if I don’t have time to ride him, but I’ll never find another like him.” And she’s going to study equine classes. She said it costs $310 a month to board her horse and the horse can’t earn that much money, so it doesn't get to go to college. But she explained what it was like to leave her horse Magi, an Arabian. She was thinking about what it's going to be like to leave her horse at home and make her mom and dad do all the work. 

She'd been thinking all summer that maybe it's time to sell the horse. She said she hated to sell the horse because it had been a friend to her and had proved to be absolutely bulletproof. 

Maybe you've had a bulletproof horse. Gamblers like to talk about a bulletproof horse, one who doesn't scare or shy away, even if you shoot at him. He’s loyal and won’t run away from you. He’s smart, learns quickly, can figure things out on his own. He’s honest. You barely lay that rein on his neck or touch him with your knee and he’ll turn. He’s got heart. He’ll do things, not because their best for him, but because he thinks they’re best for you. He’s going to be there and see you through all the tough times. 

What I was thinking is that we need some bulletproof men. We need men you can count on, who are loyal, who are smart, who are honest. And then I got to thinking about that term. I got it down to what I want to call Rules for the Bulletproof Man. 

I think God has called us to be bulletproof men. I think our families need bulletproof men. I think our country needs some bulletproof men and I think we can be. So let's jump in. These aren't necessarily any order of priority, but they'll give us an idea of what God expects us to be like. 

First of all, I put down bulletproof men have no spiritual games. 

“’One thing you lack,’ he said. ‘Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me.’ At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth” (Mark 10:21,22). 

It seems like to me in this story about the rich young ruler that this man was playing a spiritual game. This man came to Jesus and said, “I’ll do anything. I really want to follow You. What else should I do in order to get my life right. Just name the things.” And he talks about all the commandments he should follow and the young man seems sincere. He believes he’s been working to following the laws.  

Jesus said to this man, “Well, that's great what you've done so far. You've only got one thing left.” Wouldn't that be great if Jesus told us we only had one thing lacking? Jesus told him, “Sell your stuff and come, follow me.” 

He’s thinking, “I didn't mean that part of my life.” The rich young ruler’s playing a game. I think men have a tendency to play spiritual games with the Lord. They play games with the family. They play games with the church. Some of those games sometimes include things like the game that faith is a private matter. “Yeah, I don't have to talk about my faith. It's something individual. It's something I keep only to myself.” So that's a game that you're playing. 

When Jesus gives holy delight, you couldn't keep it inside if you wanted to. If you can keep it inside, it ain't there. Others play the game, “I'm not going to believe until I have an answer for every question I can think of. I'll be a believer someday if I can get all my questions answered.” Well, that's never going to happen. Next game, you wouldn't believe even if you got them understood. If you can understand it all, you're saying God is no greater than you.  

Another game then we play, “I can keep my religion separate from other areas of my life.” Or sometimes we play a game like, “I get along fine without Bible study.” Or if I increase the amount of religious activity, it will balance out the other part of my life. I might be good on some days and do bad on others, but it balances out.” That's a game. If you have any chance of being a bulletproof man at all, you’re going to have to set aside all those spiritual fallacies. 

Here's the second thing we need to deal with: no secret sins. 

Paul says in first Timothy 5:24,25, “The sins of some men are obvious, reaching the place of judgment ahead of them; the sins of others trail behind them. In the same way, good deeds are obvious, and even those that are not cannot be hidden.” 

And then he says, Ephesians 5:11,12, “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.” 

“The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light” (Romans 13:12-14).  

Paul mentions secret sins when writing to Christians , those that are pretty easy to find. You'd be ashamed to tell young people around you, like your own kids. We need to put aside those secrets sins. It started right there in the beginning of Genesis and gone throughout every era and every decade and every life. When God confronted Cain about his brother, he said, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” as if his sin wasn't known by God. 

What are you going to do when you begin to examine your own life and discover indeed there are some secret things that need to be dealt with. Let me share what I think is one helpful way of dealing with some of those sins. I think the first thing you and I need to do when we identify that sin in our lives.  

We need to confess it to God out loud. You might want to go someplace where it's nice and private. Maybe look into a mirror, if you have the nerve to look yourself in the eye. Say, “God, I know it's wrong and I know I'm doing it. I agree with you.”  Then quit the sin that’s done in secret. Once you've confessed, seek to stop what you're doing. 

Then, set yourselves a time limit. “I've been doing this for a long time. It's not going to be easy to quit. I can say today I'm going to quit and quit today, but if I go back tomorrow, the next day or next week or next month or next year …” Set yourself a limited time. “If I have not overcome this secret sin by then, I am going to confess to others, such as the church elders in private. But I'm going to give myself six days or six months from now” or whatever date you set.  

Here's the third thing, we should have no hidden agendas. 

Some religious leaders come to Jesus. In Mark 12:13, “Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words.” And later, “But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. ‘Why are you trying to trap me?’” (Mark 12:15)  

They had a hidden agenda for Jesus. If we want to be bulletproof men, we need to be out in the open. We need to have no hidden agendas for our own lives. I think we can convince the wife and family to do things by describing the adventure in different terms than what we've really been following right now. Parents, don’t have hidden agendas for your children so they know exactly what you want them to do. You and they know your agenda for them. “Well, sometimes I want my kids to be happy. I want my kids to be healthy.” But you go through the ceiling when he disobeys but says, “But dad I'm happy and I'm healthy.”

Now you think there should be more because you have another agenda for them besides being healthy and happy. You may have a big fat college scholarship in mind they're going to get someday. If we want to be bulletproof men, we have no hidden agendas. Let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no.’ (Matthew 5:37) 

“When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, ‘Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.’” (John 1:47) He speaks what’s in the front of his mind, that is, he speaks what's on his heart.  

The fourth quality of bulletproof man: no sidestepping guilt. 

Adam said when he was confronted with his sin, “’The woman you put here with me, she gave me some of the fruit from the tree, and I ate it” (Genesis 3:12).  

I think from that point on, he may have been trying to sidestep his own guilt. It’s someone else’s fault. Some of us get in this habit. There are people you run across who are perfect. There are men who are perfect, if only other people would have done what they should have done. Every failure can be pointed out to be someone else’s fault. You listen and you realize that they've never made a mistake in their life. It's just poor circumstances. No side steps in guilt. When you make mistakes, you make mistakes. 

I left for a City Council meeting one evening that started about 7:00 o'clock on the first Monday of the month. I had to drive downtown three blocks away. Now, my youngest son, Aaron, had homework to do and he’s extremely good with his schoolwork. Not only has he never missed any days in school, but he gets all A’s and everything. But somehow that homework still gets put on hold for a while. So, as I went out the door I reminded him that at 7:00 o'clock, this was a good time to get started. 

City Council meeting didn't run too long but stood around talking afterward. I was pretty late, about 10:00 getting home. I saw Aaron heading out of the kitchen going up the stairs to his bedroom. So, I asked him about how his homework was coming along. He said, “I'm just getting started.” 

So, I barged after him into his room and I began this tirade. And there's a little small voice in the back of my mind. Well, actually, it seemed to be coming from down the hall in the direction of the kitchen. And it sounded like my wife. But I laid into my son about how I expected better out of him. Soon the wee, small voice was a louder voice getting my attention. I'm curious because the use of my name gets more insistent. 

I turned around and went down the stairs. Janet said, “Before you get too carried away, Aaron I have been talking the whole time you’ve been gone about the rough things going on in school. He needed to talk some things out he had saved up. It was a rare time he let it all out.” It had been a long, good talk between mother and son. I hadn't stopped to ask or figure out why he was starting homework so late.  

I mulled that news over and turned around. I headed upstairs and looked at Aaron and said, “I blew it. It's my mistake.” I would like to hope and pray that I can be that straightforward in admitting errors every time. If we're going to be bulletproof men, there is no sidestepping our guilt. 

Fifth, no pleading ignorance. 

This is a big one. Romans 1:18-20, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities … his eternal power and divine nature … have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”  

I don't think there's any excuse for long-time spiritual immaturity. I know when we come to Christ, we are babes in Christ. We all are allowed space to grow. But the scriptural pattern in the New Testament is you don't get to be a baby Christian forever.  

I think about Hebrews 5:12 where the writer says, “In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s Word all over again.” 

By now Paul has been away from these new Christians about two years. And he tells them that by now they ought to be teaching. How long have you been a Christian? Has it been at least two years? If so, you ought to be mature. We can’t plead that we’re ignorant. We just don't know what's in the Bible. 

You oughta know basic spiritual truth. Try going to court when you have been arrested for a crime and try to plead ignorance. “Why I didn't know it was against the law.” We’re expected to know the laws. If we're going to be bulletproof men, there's no pleasing everybody. We need to learn and to know what God requires. 

Here's the sixth quality of a bulletproof man. There's no fleeing conflict. 

I think in this world that we seek peace and we should. Jesus said in John 16:33, “I've told you these things so that in me you have peace. In this world you have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” 

I think we should seek peace. In fact Paul says in Romans 12:18, “If it's possible, as far as it depends upon you, live at peace with everyone.”  

At the same time, there are some conflicts in this earth that are worth fighting. And we need to be on guard. “Stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; and be strong” (1 Corinthians 16:13) 

I think to be bulletproof men, we know when we should stay in a conflict. There’s a lot of trivial things happening in the world and maybe we shouldn't be diverted by those causes. But there are causes where we need to stand and fight. I've jotted down some of those battles that I think are worth fighting. 

We should stand up and fight whenever God’s character is attacked. We should stand up and fight whenever our family is threatened. We should stand up and fight whenever God’s plans are opposed. We should stand up and fight whenever God’s Word is under bombardment. We should stand up and fight whenever the helpless are under attack. We should stand up and fight against whatever Satan is trying to advance. There are some battles worth fighting. And there should be no fleeing of these important conflicts.  

Here's the seventh quality of bulletproof men. There are no quick fixes. 

I think about the Old Testament book of Isaiah, chapter 39. Most of that chapter is about Isaiah’s Hezekiah narratives. Do you remember how this guy was so thrilled about being healed by the Lord and given more years on his life. He prayed for more years and the Lord gave him 15 more years. He was so happy about it when a foreign government came to bring him presents and wish him best of all help, he paraded them through all the great treasures that he had. He wanted to show how wonderfully strong and rich he was. Isaiah had to confront him. 

“Hear the word of the Lord Almighty: the time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord” (Isaiah 39:6). 

What a foolish thing had happened. Those same dignitaries would march back in someday and would know where the treasures were as they overran the country. Then Hezekiah asked, “When is that going to happen?” He finds out it will be after his lifetime. “Oh well that's okay as long as didn't happen to me.” A good quick fix. 

But for the bulletproof man, there's no quick fixes at all. You remember when Jesus and disciples were hiking along back through Samaria on their way to Jerusalem. They want to go into town and get a little food and supplies for the evening. And the Samaritan village for whatever reason and there's several possibilities a village turns down the request, they’re told, you can't go back into this town. James and John are indignant. They think of a quick fix. “Lord, let's just call down fire and wipe out the city.” 

There are some men who seem to want to go through life just for quick fixes in relationships, in their faith, in their family, and their community. I call this the ‘jiggling the handle’ philosophy of life. You might know somebody this way. There seems to be a problem with the toilet. The water keeps on running. And they found out that if you jiggle the handle a little, it stops. I know you may find this hard to believe but some wives have had to live with the jiggling handle for 10, 20 years. For $10 or less and less than 30 minutes of time, you can fix that sucker now. They're just going to jiggle a handle. 

Some people think of relationships that way. You know, I could fix it right but I'm just going to jiggle the handle. I could do the right thing but I just kind of jiggle the handle and get by. In our Christian life there are no quick fixes. Do it right. We're going to rebuild it, if it needs to be rebuilt. We'll do whatever it takes to do it right. 

Eighth, I think for the bulletproof man, there are no lazy relationships. 

Ephesians 5:25 says, “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” 

There's no way you could consider that a lazy relationship. Now what Jesus did for the church and that's to me the example of our relationship with those around us, building marriage is like building anything else. It is lots of work.  

I had spent time deciding to work on the second phase of Broken Arrow Crossing. During the winter I painted my signs and I'd sketched out a little drawing of the newspaper office and big two-story hotel. I knew what I wanted to do there. I set aside a block of time. I didn't want to start the next book. I wanted to take three weeks off in between to build the next unit of Broken Arrow Crossing.

 So on the day on my calendar that said, begin to build the second unit, I went out and discovered it was 33 degrees, blowing snow, and the ground was still mostly frozen. But I worked all day. I dug through that top 68 inches of frozen ground with big holes I needed. I cleared away the weeds and I purchased supplies. For the next several weeks I worked whether it was snowing or whether it was raining or cold or whatever the weather. That was the appointed time I had taken to do some hard work.  

It didn’t look like much at first. When you first start out there are some poles in concrete sticking out of the ground. You can't tell if it's going to be a hotel or volleyball course. As I chipped away, it began to take shape. It was fun to see it completed.  

It’s the same in our relationships with our wives, with our kids, and in our family, and with our friends. It takes a lot of work. You don't wait for a good day to work on relationships. You're never going to have a good day. That's why you have worked for a long time when it was bad spiritually, socially, emotionally, and mentally. You don't always see a lot of progress right at first. You keep working away. 

What goals do you have for your family? For your marriage? Or fathering your children?  If you don’t have any goals, I guess we sort of build without a blueprint, without any plans, without scribbling down what we're going to do. No wonder it takes us so long to get anything done. We have no idea what we're doing, where we're headed. We don’t know if we’re half done or not. 

Number 9, bulletproof men make no rash promises or judgments. 

Ecclesiastes 5:4-6 says, “When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow. It's better not to make a vow then to make it and not fulfill it. Do not let your mouth lead you into sin.”

 In the same way, talking about judgment in Romans 14:13. “Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacles in your brother’s way.”

 Sometimes some men have a problem making rash promises and rash judgments. We need to learn to be slower on both points. I gotta learn in both areas myself. I think of myself as an idea person. I get all sorts of ideas for our family and so I'm always, over the years, I've had a tendency to say, “Well, let's do this and let's do that.” And, of course, not all of those things are ever going to get done. I've had to learn to be a little more careful. 

One of the reasons I got up there every day for three weeks and drove 500 miles this summer is because 4-5 years ago I made a pretty quick promise. “Aaron, we're going to take you to all 50 states.” There were times this summer I kept thinking, why did I ever say that? Wouldn't 12 states be enough? We need to be men who make no rash promises or rash judgments but think things through. 

Number 10, there can be no withholding of forgiveness or affection. 

in Matthew 18:21,22 Jesus is talking to Peter and Peter is asking, “How many times do I forgive my brother? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” 

Keep right on forgiving. The same is true with our affection for other people. Keep on loving each other. If you haven't had a hard time, you probably don’t have any children. Keep on forgiving your children too. The hardest time with your children is when they're in junior high and high school. Maybe they aren’t old enough yet. And never withhold affection. 

I remember I was speaking in a town and on the way home they give you things. Inside I found a pamphlet about how to speak to your dog and take care of the dog and described how to discipline a dog. If it does the wrong thing, you have to scold it. You roll up a newspaper and give a swat or whatever. But as soon as you have disciplined the dog for its poor behavior, then you show some affection too. There are more dads who know how to discipline dogs than they know how to discipline their kids. Don’t withhold affection even during times of correction. Affection comes immediately after.

 Eleventh, for the bulletproof man, no embarrassment over personal faith. 

“I'm not ashamed of the gospel,” Paul says in Romans 1:16, “because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”

 I belong to an organization called Western Writers of America because I’ve written some western books. This trade journal goes out to western writers about four times a year. It's kind of a literary magazine of what's happening in reports on writers and from Hollywood on western movies. I looked through it and found an article written by a man whose father was a screen writer in Hollywood. He was talking about what his day job was like being a screen writer. His dad wrote the screenplay for the movie The Shootist, John Wayne's last movie. 

As an aside, this man was telling one little incident about the struggle screenwriter’s have with script changes. In this particular movie, you might remember John Wayne was a gunfighter who has cancer. John Wayne knew that this was going to be his last movie. So, he plays this aging gunfighter, J.B. Books and there are lots of people in the movie who want to take advantage of this well-known aging gunfighter. People are trying to take advantage of his illness and a former girlfriend comes back who wants to marry him so she can be J.B. Books widow and make money writing the book about that. 

Then a newspaper guy comes and wants to do a series of stories so he can make money selling those to an eastern magazine. And the undertaker is all set to want to offer him all these free things because in the Old West they'll probably put his body on display. He can charge $0.50 a person to come see the famous dead gunman.  

And in the screenplay, there was a part of a preacher. They're getting ready to do this preacher as one who also takes financial advantage of this gunman. The preacher would say he wants to minister to him in his last days, but has greedy motives, the typical stereotype of a preacher. One of the characters in the movie was the doctor, and Jimmy Stewart was supposed to play this part. In the movie, Dr. Hostetler gives the diagnosis and tries to treat J.B. Books. 

When Jimmy Stewart read the whole script and saw the portrayal of the character of the preacher in such a way as to put down the Christian faith, Stewart said, “If that character remains in the movie, I quit!” He wouldn’t be part of a movie in which a preacher is scorned, and Christians put down. So that part was taken out of the movie. John Wayne wanted Jimmy in the movie, so insisted they drop that other part. I like that example of being a bulletproof man. There’s a time to take a stand. It doesn’t matter who hears. It doesn’t matter the repercussions. I don’t know what area you and I will be called on to make that kind of stand. We need to have that kind of courage. 

Here’s the last of the thoughts about being a bulletproof man. There should be no fear of Satan.  

Ephesians 6:13, “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that you may be able to stand your ground and then after you have done everything, to stand.” 

James 4:7, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” 

Now there's a difference between respecting the power of Satan and fearing Satan. Yes, he’s powerful and his work in the world is rampant. But we can live without fear because the power within you and me is greater than the power in this world.  

When I was doing the research for the book, The Lost Manuscript, one of the projects was to go down into the Arizona strip country north in the Grand Canyon. So I got in a rig and I drove 90 miles down a dirt road. This is one of those dirt roads that doesn't say, “Take along a friend” or doesn't say, “Take along extra tires, water,” and all that. It says, “Take another car.” You shouldn’t go down there one vehicle at a time because it’s so remote. But I didn't have other people.  

I went down by myself drove 90 miles down the dirt road and it took several hours to get to the edge of the Grand Canyon where few people go. You can drive up within 20 feet of the canyon edge. You can hike across that granite cap and there's no guardrail, no forest service facility. There's nothing there. And you can actually … there was a little crevice and a big boulder that jutted out there. So I stepped across the crevice and went out there. 

You can actually sit down like I did on the edge and hang your feet over 3000 feet down to the Colorado River. it was gorgeous. You looked up to the east and back to where the park is. You can see the trees along that north rim. And the sun was setting. There were clouds in the sky in a swirl of colors. You can look down and see that muddy, muddy Colorado River way down there at the bottom as it bends and courses its way. And out to the West, towards the desert, you can see the setting sun and the reds and the oranges. A beautiful sight. 

Now I was sitting there for a couple hours, a magnificent place to drink in God’s great creation. After I’d been there a while, a van pulled up. There’s two ways to get there, the 90-mile way or the shortcut 60 miles down a dirt road. But for my research, I wanted the long way. 

But these folks took the shortcut and the van was covered with red dust and dirt. The people got out and they didn't get very close to the edge. They looked at me out there and one of the ladies lost her lunch. They stood way back. One of the fellows hollered at me, “What’s it look like?” and I tried to describe how great it was. He said, “Aren't you afraid of falling over?” I said, “Yeah, that would scare me to death if I fell over the edge, but I don't plan on falling over.” 

Aren't you scared to death of Satan’s power? Yes, I’m scared to death of Satan’s power but I just don't plan on letting him get me. And I believe the power of the Holy Spirit can defeat the power of Satan. And I’m going to work hard to see that I have all that power granted to me. So No Fear of Satan though I respect his power. But I won't cower away from anything. He's not going to scare me away from life, righteousness, or the gospel.  

Back in 1889, out near Walker Lake in Nevada, just out of Hawthorne if you've been down Hwy 95, out on the Walker Lake Indian Reservation there was a Piute Indian by the name of Wovoka. He had a vision as he meditated. He had a vision of how the Indians in America were going to rise up and were going to throw off the yoke of oppression from all of the whites that moved through the West. They were going to reclaim the land, how the buffalo would come back by the thousands and millions. And that included a dance that would bring about the movement. And there was special clothing that you could wear. 

It’s called in the history books the ghost dance religion. And there were special shirts with special designs. And it was claimed if you wore those shirts, and if you dance that dance, you'd be impervious to white man’s bullets. Now we're talking 1889, not early in the West, 13 years after Custer was defeated at the Little Bighorn. It’s after all the Indian wars were done and over and 20 years after the railroad got out West. 

In 1889, there are 3/4 million people in California already. But things were desperate among the Indian tribes. The Piute Indians began to believe Wovoka. And they began to dance the Indian ghost dance. Within a matter of months, even weeks the idea spread to the other tribes and moved right out into the plains. The Plains Indians sent representatives to learn all about it from Wovoka and learn the dance.  

Somehow, they were going to get everything back the way it used to be. They were dancing the Indian ghost dance when the troops showed up at Wounded Knee for the last Indian battle. They put on their ghost shirts, and they danced their dance and refused to go back on the reservation. They made their stands against the troops. And they were shot down dead. 

From 100 years later, you look back and say, “How could they have thought that was going to do any good? I mean, maybe in 1789 or 1689, but by 1889 surely they knew.”  They were desperate people who were deceived. 

Sometimes I think as men of God we are just as deceived. We think we’re bulletproof men. We sing the songs of Zion. We use the Lord's name with honor. And we clothe ourselves with something about as flimsy as deerskin. And we get shot down.  

There is a way to be a bulletproof man. These are some of the key factors we need to consider. Amen & Amen.

 Father and Lord, as we review a list like this, there are always several that pop out. And we know and we know we need to deal with that one. Lord, I pray that none of us be overcome with a big, long list but we'll begin to see one, two, or three things that you have in mind for us to deal with. And we want to start there. Then we'll set aside those others. We can work on them later or maybe we've already been working on those. 

But help us, Father, to begin where you want us to begin, to strengthen our life so that our families will have a bulletproof father and husband and grandpa. Our community will have a few more bulletproof men. Most of all, so you'll have more bulletproof children. Lord, we thank you that scriptural goals are within our grasp, not too difficult. It's surely possible through your help and the leading of your Holy Spirit. We want to be bulletproof men for you. I pray in Jesus Name, Amen.