WESTERN WISDOM, Season 5, Episode 13 "Are You On the Peck?" audio podcast by award-winning western author Stephen Bly. Whether to be at peace or fighting mad. Sponsored by BlyBooks.com Legacy Series.
"Nothing at Peace About Him" blog post article found here: https://www.blybooks.com/2023/04/at-peace/
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ON THE PECK
Stephen Bly
Circa 1995
It was a cool April morning up here in the mountains of north-central Idaho and I was surprised to see my neighbor, Dupree Davis, standing beside his pickup truck, next to the gravel road, with sweat just dripping off his face.
“Dupree, you’re working considerable hard this early in the morning,” I teased him.
“Work?” he groaned. “I’ve been running, that’s what I’ve been doing!”
“Well,” I continued, “I’m proud to see you interested in a little exercise.”
“Exercise?” he fumed. “I was running for my life! That dadgum bald faced cow decided not to let me doctor her calf. She charged at me like she’d been vaccinated with a cattle prod. I fogs it across the corral with her trying to pick my back pocket with her teeth. If I hadn’t thrown my hat in her face, she’d be out there trampling me into mud right now. Ain’t nothing worse than a mamma cow on the peck.”
I drove off laughing and wondering how Dupree was going to recover his hat.
Old West and Walk of Faith
Dupree made me think about that term of being on the peck. In the Old West it was an expression that meant a person or animal was fighting mad.
It seems to me that Christians should never be on the peck. Oh, there are certainly some things in life worth fighting for. But the Old West term connotates a sense of reckless, unthinking anger, that is, lashing out at all in sight.
The key ingredient of a disciplined Christian life is self-control. When anger is controlling us, it’s a cinch that the Holy Spirit isn’t.
Righteous Living
We might need to be righteously angry from time to time, to motivate us to accomplish the Lord’s will. But that anger should never be allowed to possess us.
Sometimes it helps if we keep our focus in the right direction.
The Bible says, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:18).
Our first reaction to confrontation should be to seek a peaceful response to the situation. That doesn’t mean we overlook sin, put up with blasphemy, or ignore injustice, in the name of peace. But it does mean our basic personality must be that of a peacemaker.
Anything less than that sidetracks us from Christian discipleship and opens the gate for other virtues to escape as well.