Ep. 28 - The Unforgiving Bird: What Turkeys Teach Us About Human Nature

What do wild turkeys and forgiveness have in common? More than you might think. As we gather around the microphones with turkey season approaching, our conversation weaves between hunting tactics and profound life lessons about extending grace when it's hardest.

Eastern wild turkeys - universally acknowledged as the most challenging subspecies to hunt - provide a perfect metaphor for the unforgiving nature we sometimes embody. These birds offer no second chances; one small mistake and they're gone. Yet unlike turkeys, we have the choice to extend grace even when it feels impossible.

From traffic rage to broken relationships, we share personal stories of struggling to forgive. Brandon shared the quote, "Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die," highlighting how holding grudges ultimately harms only ourselves. We discuss praying for someone who broke into our business instead of being consumed by anger, and the ongoing process of healing from deeper hurts.

The parallels between pursuing wild turkeys and pursuing peace in our relationships become increasingly clear. Both require patience, intentionality, and persistence through failure. Both transform us in unexpected ways.

Whether you're preparing for turkey season or simply navigating life's challenges, this conversation offers perspective on letting go of resentment and embracing the freedom that comes with forgiveness. Because unlike those wary gobblers in the spring woods, sometimes the most valuable thing we can offer is a second chance.

Thanks for joining us on The Bowtreader Podcast. Leave a comment to let us know where you are listening from as well as any topics that you would like to hear us cover. Be sure to like the episode and subscribe to follow along. 

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Transcript

Episode Introduction and Prayer

Speaker 1 1:19

Why are you so weird? Why are you this way?

Speaker 2 1:23

People like it.

Speaker 1 1:24

No, they don't. Not one person has commented saying man, I love hearing Wes open those liquid death cans.

Speaker 3 1:31

Please comment. That is an opening to a song. You know what song it is? I have no idea, alan Jackson remade it, papa Top.

Speaker 1 1:47

Who originally did that song.

Speaker 2 1:49

I didn't know that was a remake. I don't know I'll have to look it up.

Speaker 1 1:54

Oh well, not important. All right, let's pray together. Father, we love you and we thank you for this time together as men, to come and to talk about things going on in our lives and the way that you guide us and direct us, and just the opportunities you give us, not only to be a part of your will and your purpose for each of our lives, but for the opportunities you give us to be able to get out in creation and enjoy what you have given to us. Enjoy what you have given to us. We ask you to use our voices this morning to build each other up, to have fun and laughter. God, we thank you for the gift of laughter In the

Speaker 2 2:31

name of.

Turkey Hunting Stories and Youth Weekend

Speaker 1 2:31

Jesus, we pray Amen. Amen. All right, let's do it. So we got good old WC Westchester back on the podcast with us. Good morning, glad to have him. Yes, sir, all right. So we're going to talk turkey a little bit. I mean, it is the season, apparently, we're going to talk baseball too, because it's definitely baseball season too.

Speaker 4 2:54

Opening day.

Speaker 1 2:55

Yes, sir. So yeah, Thursday March 27th, it is opening day of baseball season. It's good stuff. Dub's got his liquid death over here, Dr.

Speaker 2 3:08

Death, dr Death Good.

Speaker 1 3:10

Man.

Speaker 2 3:11

He tried it the other day. He said he liked it.

Speaker 1 3:13

This kind of tastes like Dr Pepper Pretty good.

Speaker 2 3:20

It is good.

Speaker 1 3:20

Yeah, so all right. So this saturday speaking of opening days this saturday is where it all happens. I can't wait to hear the stories about people that just kidnapped some kid so they could go hunting this past weekend oh yeah, yeah, we talked about last time. You know everybody, everybody loves kids on youth weekend.

Speaker 1 3:46

Yeah, but I hadn't. I mean I've I've seen some, so you know success stories from youth weekend. Um, we did not have a good youth. I mean we, we did. We weren't successful. We heard some birds but and it was cold and in my experience turkeys are either they're either fired up if it's cold or they are shut down and they gobbled good on the roost for us. But I mean, once they got down, it was radio silence yeah.

Speaker 4 4:22

We. We heard a few after they were down, but I mean they were just blowing up in the tree.

Speaker 1 4:27

Yeah.

Speaker 4 4:32

And then when they hit the ground we heard hens with them and stuff too, but they really shut down after they were out of the tree.

Speaker 1 4:36

Yep, well, I mean, we still had a good time, it was fun to be out there. We were Dub and I. We were walking, you know, just trying to walk and call a little bit and try to see if we could hear anything. And um, we were walking, um like back up towards our house and um crossed a fire break and as I stepped into the fire break, I saw this black, you know, down the fire break. And as I stepped into the fire break, I saw this black, you know, down the fire break and I grabbed him and jumped back. I mean, if I saw the bird, the bird saw me. Let's be, you know, let's be realistic about this. But I said so, we jumped back and I kind of, you know, got down, you know, started doing a little army crawl, crawl back up to the fire break and I looked down there and the bird's still there and I'm like I mean, let's see, you know, let's try and um.

Speaker 1 5:30

So we sat there for about 20 minutes or so and never could he. I mean he wouldn't make a sound. But if it was a, if it was a tom I don't know if it was or not. I mean, you know, when you see something like that, you're like oh man, it was a huge bird.

Speaker 1 5:47

You know who knows who knows what it was. But anyway, we had a good time. But you know, we got some little bit warmer weather. It's going to be about 15 degrees warmer Saturday morning. I think that'll bode well for us, so I'm excited about it, Yep.

Speaker 3 6:05

We've been watching birds in a food plot. I got a camera, matter of fact, the camera just went off and I was excited. Look, there was deer this morning. But we got them. We hadn't messed with them, we haven't been in there. Yeah, we are going to go in there about lunchtime tomorrow to clean out where we're going to sit, and then I'm going to be in there tomorrow night after well, after dark, and I'm going to go ahead and put that decoy up and then we're going to get out of there so we can get back in there saturday morning and not have to disturb anything. But these turkeys have put the mojo on me opening morning the last two years.

Speaker 3 6:41

So I said earlier, you know I'm not that mad at turkeys, like some people are, but these two I'm pretty mad man.

Speaker 1 6:49

I was listening to the gamekeeper podcast yesterday and I think it was the guy. Um, I'm gonna look it up real quick. I think it was.

Speaker 3 7:07

And I did see some. We got a guy up in Portal. He took his little nine-year-old daughter and she killed a nice bird this weekend. Okay, Nice bird.

Speaker 1 7:16

All right, I think this is the guy that was talking about it from Woodhaven Custom Calls. Yeah, he was saying I think it was him. I wasn't, I'll be honest, I wasn't listening that intently and I only listened for a few minutes. But um, he said that he's got, he has built a pine box like a coffin. So when he kills a, that's how that bird rides back to the house, that's intense right there. He said, you know, I mean, I feel like I need to give this bird some respect.

Speaker 1 7:50

Yeah, yeah, I thought that was pretty funny, that is funny.

Speaker 3 7:53

You know I listened to part of that podcast and something that I did not know but they talk about. If you have a lot of jakes, if you have a group of jakes, they will run off. A mature gobbler Not necessarily run off, but they feel like that gobbler understands that one against four or five is not good odds, so he'll hang back. So you know you get a group of jakes and your odds of killing that mature gobbler go down.

Speaker 4 8:24

Yeah, that's interesting.

Speaker 1 8:25

How about that Tuesday afternoon, about 1.45 or so in the afternoon, I had to go to a meeting and I was on my way back and just right on the edge of the road, just in this field that you know, the farmer hadn't done anything with yet, it's just a bunch of weeds and stuff out there, there's three jakes walking around and then we go home. You know, so it's 6, 15 or so after we close the shop and we head home and two of them are still out there walking around. Yeah, you know, I mean just in the broad daylight. But jakes are weird, man, how they'll, how they'll do things and I don't know, I don't want to say they're stupid. You know, like a two-year-old buck, that deer's stupid. I mean, you know they're just dumb. I mean they have no idea, no care in the world. They'll walk right up to you, right under you, when you're hunting and everything, and it's like. You know, I don't know why did you point that at? It was convenient, but that might have been one.

Speaker 3 9:26

Don't be punching your old turkeys. Listen. If you gobble like a man, you're going to die like a man. That's what we say they're a lot of fun.

Speaker 4 9:34

Yeah, they gobble a lot. They're not real smart. They haven't been as educated yet, so yeah, but I was riding through town the other day. I'm in the city limits and glance over in a field and there's at least one gobbler. There's, I guess, about six or eight hens, and half the time I'm riding down the road with uh on x on my truck. You know, just like okay, who owns that?

Speaker 1 10:02

who owns that? Do I know them?

Speaker 4 10:04

they hunt. I need to know them, yeah oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 10:10

Yeah, the turkey population is, I feel like it's yeah, I feel like it's really good. I mean, I honestly do no.

Speaker 3 10:19

so where we, where I, where we live now, is my granddad's farm. So I grew up out there my whole life and all through high school and college there was no turkeys. I mean none, zero. And now we have a tremendous turkey population in North Bullock County.

Speaker 1 10:38

Yep, yep, so Mossy Oak did basically it. Basically it's a documentary. Last year, I think, is when they came out with it, what's it called?

Speaker 2 10:48

The Colonel and the Fox, yeah.

Speaker 1 10:49

The Colonel and the Fox.

Speaker 1 10:51

If you have not seen that. You need to go watch it. It is awesome. They talk about the biology and how they reintroduced the turkey population and what it took to do that and everything how they reintroduced the turkey population and what it took to do that and everything and then they just talk about two old timers that have been chasing these birds you know for decades and just some of the coolest stories that you'll hear and a lot of really cool history you know. Once you you don't understand this yet Once you get to about 40, you have to either go really hard into smoking meat or become a history buff, like a World War II history buff.

Speaker 2 11:36

I told you that.

Speaker 1 11:39

But you don't understand it yet. But I'm going more towards like a hunting history buff. There you go, and also smoking meat, so it's kind of a.

Speaker 4 11:49

Smoking meat is better than smoking other things.

Speaker 1 11:51

Yeah, I wouldn't know I don't man speaking of that. Y'all want to hear some crazy crap. Easter's on 420. Why are you Just sit over?

Speaker 4 12:02

there Speaking of smoking things.

Speaker 1 12:04

Just sit over there and drink your liquid death and and speak when you're asked to speak, All right.

Speaker 4 12:14

I've got the maturity of a 16 year old. Evidently it's perfect.

Speaker 1 12:19

So there's this group of moms in St Louis. Don't go there, do not. Of moms in St Louis.

Speaker 2 12:25

Don't go there. Do not go there. Yeah, st Louis is a. I'm so sorry if you live there.

Speaker 1 12:31

It is like the butt crack of America right now. It's bad. Anyway, there's this group of moms that have put together this social group and it's called like Canna Moms or something like that, and they get together and they smoke marijuana or they call it something cannabis. In the video it showed them smoking. It showed them eating gummies and stuff like that Cheetos, things like that.

Speaker 1 13:07

I mean, yeah, probably brownies and French fries and all kinds of stuff, but anyway they're saying that they're doing it as a release from parenting, to overcome the stresses of parenting and everything. And the girl, she was on Laura Ingraham's show last night. I don't watch the news that much because it's just, you know, only like every night. No, I've gotten to where I don't. I did for a while I'd watch it every night, but then it's, you know, it's just, it's the same thing every night. No, I've gotten to where I don't. I did for a while I'd watch it every night, but then it's just it's the same thing every night.

Speaker 1 13:47

So they run like six shows back to back to back and they're all talking about the exact same thing and it's just so frustrating. But when there's no baseball and there's no football and I'm that stereotypical basketball guy I love it. When it's March Madness Outside stereotypical basketball guy I love it when it's March Madness Outside. Of that, I don't care, I'm not watching the NBA, I don't believe in the NBA and the crap that they do and everything.

Speaker 1 14:11

Personal sports in general. So I was watching that last night and they were talking about that and Laura said well, do you have a church group that you're involved with there? That that you know would maybe be a healthier outlet than you know? So she was comparing it to you know, moms that will drink wine at night. You know you had the the wine mom stereotype or whatever, but it's, it's not the same man. I mean, listen, I'm not saying, okay, you should drink a bottle of wine every night, or anything like that. I don't think that. I don't think that any type of chemical should be a coping mechanism for us. Hang on, let me drink some more of this coffee.

Speaker 4 14:52

Anyway but this is just to stay awake during our own podcast.

Speaker 1 14:58

Right, yeah, because it's so boring, Right, but to me the issue with marijuana is that, or with cannabis or whatever we're supposed to call it now is that the hallucinating that comes from it and everything. And one of the points that Laura made last night she's like listen, this isn't the stuff that is available now. This isn't your grandpa's weed, this isn't you know what they were smoking at woodstock or something. This is like pharmaceutical grade, you know, knocking you on your tail kind of stuff. Um, but but when she asked the question, she said you know, do you have, is there a church group that you guys can be involved with to have a different outlet, or whatever? And she's like the lady said, we go to church every Sunday. In fact, we're talking about doing cannabis, bible study and I was like what in the world just happened? I mean, how would you even do that?

Speaker 4 15:56

Yeah, that makes me think about that movie, young Guns, when they're on the shrooms and they're like I won't say the whole thing, but he's like we're in the spirit world oh my gosh, yeah, I've never seen they're tripping.

Speaker 3 16:09

Yeah, it's been a long time, it's an older movie, but yeah hey documentaries. Have you ever seen the documentary called my life as a turkey? Yes that is a cool yeah, where the guy takes a clutch of turkey eggs and hatches them and raises them up.

Speaker 1 16:29

That was here in Georgia.

Speaker 3 16:30

Right, it was, it was it was down on the coast A biologist named Joe Hutto, and it's a really cool documentary.

Speaker 1 16:39

One of the only things that public broadcasting did that was good, you're right.

Speaker 4 16:51

Boy, they're under the microscope right now.

Speaker 1 16:54

Oh my gosh, yeah, that's a really cool show. That came out probably 15 or 20 years ago. Yeah, it's a long time.

Speaker 3 17:05

It's really cool to look it up and take a look at that it's a great story about wild animals, because one of the last turkeys that was left was a gobbler. It actually turned on him, it attacked him. That's a wild animal, that's what he does. He had raised this thing from a bitty. It's a wild animal, that's what he does, and he had raised this thing from a bitty. It's a cool show.

Speaker 2 17:31

I don't want no gobbler attacking me.

Speaker 1 17:33

Heck, no, so one of the guys that works for us. They went down. Let's get this straight Week before last A lake in Florida, yeah, week before last they went down to central Florida and and did some hunting, and one of the guys down there so they're hunting Osceola's down there and one of the guys, either in their group or a group that they met down there, killed a bird that had spurs that were almost two inches long. Wow, could you, I mean, just think about that for a second it got him too.

Speaker 1 18:02

Yeah, well, it just got him on the hand when he picked him up or whatever. But oh, I guarantee you that hurt, could you? I mean, could you imagine getting attacked by that bird? No, or what that bird could do to another gobbler? I mean, he'd kill another bird with a two-inch spur. That's just crazy, man. And it was sharp too. Yeah, I mean, I've killed birds where you know the spurs were big, you know inch and a half spurs or one-inch spurs or something like that, but they were not sharp, they were rounded off or whatever.

Speaker 3 18:33

That thing man, he had some short enough spurs, you brought it up so I'm going to tell you this story. Let's hear it. So I got a friend. So I got a friend. His name is Joey Scanlon. He lives in Griffin and Joey had never been turkey hunting so they had a lease down in Taylor County or somewhere down that way. So Joey and I go turkey hunting this is the first of the season, it's still cool and we get there, we hear nothing and you know, we walk and we walk and we walk. It's one of those stories where we didn't hear anything. So we come up on a log dock and I said, joey, let's just sit down right here and let's just every once in a while we'll call, you know, see what happens. So we're sitting there and it's typical early season turkey. You don't walk, you're tired. Now you sit down. That sun hits your face. You start to take a little nap. All of a sudden Joey shoots and I jump up and look and he runs and a gobbler has come in, completely silent. Joey kills his first turkey.

Speaker 3 19:35

Fast forward, I don't know, it's probably eight or nine, maybe even 10 years later. Joey calls me one morning and he said Wes, what is the longest beard you've ever seen on a turkey. I said, gosh, joey, probably 12 inches. He said I killed one this morning. That's a lot longer than 12 inches. Would you come over here and measure it? I said, no, I won't. If it's a lot longer than 12 inches, you need to call the National Wild Turkey Federation. So they did, and they have measurers, just like Boone and Crockett do. So this guy came out and he measured this beard 17 and 5 eighths. That's insane. Now he only had two strands left, but that made it official because Joey had shot him right in the chest as the bird was coming to him, and they went back to where he shot him and picked up more of his beard.

Speaker 3 20:33

Dude when he is still in the record books. I don't know that it's the longest, but it's right in the top five of 17 and 5 eighths inches.

Speaker 1 20:43

Wow, that's's crazy. I've seen, I've seen, you know, birds that have six or seven beards oh, I ain't ever seen one with, you know, almost 18 inches, that is wow, that's.

Speaker 2 20:57

What I woke up to on monday was a trail camera picture. I look at it expecting a fox squirrel, because we have fox squirrels on the property Now, a gobbler with a double beard and another one just 120 yards from my house. Yeah, I was like could have just done that yesterday.

Speaker 4 21:18

Yep, yep, that's right. I felt kind of captive on Saturday because I couldn't hunt without my son, and so he kind of controlled the day right. He got tired of hunting. I was like, well, I'll go do it. I can't do that, you know. And so the whole day was spent, like me and my oldest were like begging him, like hey, let's just keep hunting, let's keep hunting, let's keep hunting. So I actually made a video of him. He's just like dragging down the road, you know.

Speaker 3 21:52

So how old is he?

Speaker 4 21:54

he's 14, but we, we walked miles. I mean, you know, and we heard birds, but again we couldn't do much with them, so but well, colby hits me up friday night.

Speaker 3 22:06

Hey dad, it's youth day tomorrow and we had already made our plans for this coming weekend, you know, because we got colby and tucker, my two boys, and we've already planned to set up on this food plot. I said, man, I can't just take you and just kick Tucker to the curb. Oh, come on. So he wanted to go. I didn't realize it was 16. I thought the minimum age was maximum age was 15. So, if I'd have known that we might have made a plan somewhere else, but we set it out.

Speaker 1 22:40

Yeah, it's good. It's good stuff. Y'all have a good time Saturday morning. So all three of you going to go, we're going.

Speaker 1 22:47

Yeah, well, maybe they'll double up. Y'all have those birds you know being consistent, coming in there. I hope so. Yeah, it'll be good. So Wes, you and I, hunted together. This has been two or three years ago. We hunted on a farm over close to you and had birds gobbling, good that whole morning. So we're kind of on the backside of a pasture down on a. There was a creek bottom back there and then there was a pond back on the back end of it. So we get back there and we hear this bird gobbling and we get set up and we're, you know, calling to it and we're both calling a little bit, not much, you know, just kind of going back and forth and, uh, this bird is I mean he's he's responding, he's gobbling back and we could, we could tell that he was.

Speaker 1 23:42

It sounded like he was just going back and forth. Yeah, we couldn't figure out what it was, why he was doing that, why he was hung up, but I mean, he'd gobble and you know, it sounded like he was over here and then he'd gobble again and he's like 15 yards or 20 yards the other way. And finally, you know, we're sitting there and Wes was sitting up in front of me, probably 10 yards in front of me, or something he said did you hear that? I was like no, I started to say yeah, I heard it, but no, I didn't.

Speaker 1 24:19

Anyhow, this bird had flown over the top of this pond and he got on the other side, on the dam closest to us, and he gobbled one more time right there, you know, and I think Wes hit the call one time and we're sitting there and I mean we're thinking, all right, he's about to pop out, you know. And then he turns and goes completely back up this creek bottom, you know. So we take off trying to go around and get ahead of him and everything. That was one of the craziest hunts, though he was close when he came across that pond.

Speaker 3 24:52

we couldn't see him, but I mean he was close yeah.

Speaker 1 24:55

Yeah, but that was a really fun hunt that morning.

Comparing Eastern Turkeys to Other Subspecies

Speaker 1 25:00

But anyhow, one of the things that I have learned with turkey hunting is they are not forgiving if you do something that doesn't sound just right, or if you do something that I mean it can be the smallest little thing, buddy, they are out of there, they're gone. They are not forgiving at all, and that's something that you haven't gotten a chance to see yet. You know because your hunt last year, remember, we killed those two birds and I said, dude, this may never, ever, ever happen again. I hope it does, but this may never happen. I mean, it was like I couldn't have drawn it up any better. There was nothing I could have done.

Speaker 2 25:45

There was nothing I could have done. There was nothing I would have changed about that hunt that morning. Nothing, not a single thing. I would have changed something, what Just had something, some form of filming it.

Speaker 1 25:50

Oh yeah, I mean I would have loved to have captured that, Because that was cool.

Speaker 3 25:54

So you say that let's go ahead and break this egg right here. That will probably never happen again. Hunting Easterns Every other species of bird are stupid. I was going to say yeah.

Speaker 4 26:11

Easterns are definitely you know. You watch the videos of you know Osceolas or Meridian and it's like holy crap, like very different.

Speaker 2 26:24

They're gobbling their head off at 3 o'clock.

Speaker 3 26:26

Yeah, our group goes to Kansas, they go back and the same land that we bow hunt on, they go back and hunt turkeys and I don't, if it's been a year, it ain't been many of them that they didn't all limit out. Because they say, if you get out of the truck and you hear one gobble, he's coming. He got roads, creeks, rivers. He's coming. So if you're patient enough and sit there, they're coming.

Speaker 4 26:54

I've never hunted anything but Easterns, but everybody you talk to that has they just say that that's definitely the hardest turkey to kill.

Speaker 1 27:02

Well, you know, we have the opportunity to talk with hunters all over the country. We have folks that will call and contact us about whatever. They're having issues tuning their bow, or they want to know something about how they can do their arrow setup, or they're ordering something from our online store or whatever. I can't tell you how many times I've had somebody say if you can kill an eastern, you can kill anything. That's right, you know, because the way that those birds act compared to the way our birds act In Kansas, what are those Miriams? Miriams, yeah, I mean, I've never been out there and hunted them. I've talked with a guy a lot in oklahoma and he has told me. He said man, you'll be riding through, so they have huge pieces of public land out there that are it's just farmland yeah and I don't think it's blm land.

Speaker 1 27:59

it might be, I'm not sure. But he said you, you could just ride through there and you know of this time of year there'll be wheat fields. And he said you'll ride through and there'll be, you know, like a little bottom out in the wheat field. He said you might see 30 birds and 75 or 80% of them are gobblers. That's crazy. He said you can crawl through that wheat, they'll just stay right there. You can crawl through that wheat and go out there. You can crawl through that wheat and go out there. You can go out there and grab one of them if you want to, if you can slip up on him. But I was like, dude, you ain't never going to do that with an Easter.

Speaker 3 28:34

Well, and they say the same thing in Kansas If you're riding down the road and you see turkeys in a place, in a field that you have permission to hunt, you just drive up there park the truck, slip back down there, start calling and they're coming.

Speaker 4 28:48

Yeah, that's crazy, that's wild. It's almost like that with deer too, though it seems like like when you think about it there's probably a reason. There's not many hunting shows that video deer hunts in the southeast like I'm gonna tell you my feeling on and. I tell people this all the time.

Speaker 3 29:06

Let's hear it. You know, those deer in the Midwest are not near as spooky as our deer, because they've never seen a redneck get out of the truck, set his beer on the hood and prop up with a .30-06 across, you know, and shoot at him.

Speaker 1 29:20

That's true Now they have seen rednecks. Let's be honest about this. Now, they have seen rednecks. Let's be honest about this. There are rednecks, I don't know. Yeah, there's rednecks in Illinois. No they are. But I have a hard line. If you can ice fish in your state, you're not a southerner, all right.

Speaker 2 29:38

That is absolutely where I draw the line you mean like holding a glass of iced tea and fishing.

Speaker 1 29:44

No, no, I mean putting your little shanty hut out on the ice.

Speaker 4 29:50

Oh, like drilling a hole and drilling a hole and fishing.

Speaker 1 29:53

If you can do that, that sounds like death. If you can do that, I mean it sounds like it'd probably be fun once, but I don't know.

Speaker 3 30:00

You see these shows, especially these guys that are way up north that have these little shanties built and they go in there and they've got a generator and they've got TV and they've got a heater going in there.

Speaker 2 30:10

Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 30:12

I mean no, no.

Speaker 2 30:13

I get the meat eater emails. They did a story on a guy. He was ice fishing and something. When he drilled into the water like a bunch of methane came into his little hut and he had a heater and it exploded. I mean he got all tore up. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 4 30:30

Jeez man.

Speaker 2 30:32

That's terrible. The whole thing just went up in flames.

Speaker 4 30:35

You talk about the like. I think there's rednecks everywhere, but I would say we probably got a different level of redneck say, we probably got a different level of redneck.

Speaker 3 30:47

Well, on a serious note, if you get caught breaking a game law in georgia, the penalty is not near as severe as it is if you get caught breaking a game law in illinois, or kansas or somewhere like that yeah, you know they make it well.

Speaker 3 31:07

When we we were hunting in Illinois years and years and years ago, we duck hunted one morning and left the duck blind, 8, 830, threw everything in the back of the rental car, took off back to get ready to go deer hunting the rest of the day and got pulled over for speeding and we had set the shotgun in the back seat. And I mean it's a felony offense because was it loaded? Yes, like in the mag tube.

Speaker 3 31:36

Yes, yeah, yeah, okay, um, you have to have the gun in a case in a case and the ammunition in the trunk. Wow, you can't even have it in the back seat with it.

Speaker 4 31:46

That's like traveling in the airport or something, right I mean you know, we had to go back up for court.

Speaker 3 31:51

I mean, it wasn't me, I didn't get charged with that, but the, the person that was charged, had to go back up to court and they charged him with a felony, put him on probation for two years and as long as nothing happened in that two years, you know, they removed the felony from his record.

Speaker 1 32:08

He had a felony on his record for two years for having a gun in the backseat. So they're the same way with archery equipment. When we go up there, we have to take cases with us. Even if we're in a side-by-side or something, it's got to be in a case, or all right, hang on If you're in a side side. If you don't have it in a case, you have to have a lock on the bow that keeps you from shooting it. Uh, and? And a lock could be just like a zip tie, like we put zip ties on all the bows in here, just because you know you got to protect people from themselves sometimes. I can't tell you how many times we've had people come in, pick up a bow and like try to draw it like it's like dude, what are you doing?

Speaker 2 32:47

Yeah, we'll be just working like a busy Saturday or something here bam.

Speaker 1 32:54

Look over and it's like, oh no, that's not good. Somebody will say, well, he just bought that. Yeah, we've definitely had that happen before.

Speaker 3 33:04

So yeah, no, the penalty for breaking game laws in Georgia is a slap on the wrist. I mean you read the Hall of Shame and GON and they get basically nothing.

Speaker 1 33:15

That's pretty wild. Yeah, I mean, why is that you think?

Speaker 3 33:23

That's because the judge used to do it too.

Speaker 4 33:30

Okay, you know, maybe I don't know yeah I really don't know, yeah well, I might, would would just in a hypothetical situation. You know, hunting over a baited duck hole with a game warden might have happened at some point.

Speaker 1 33:50

Hypothetically.

Speaker 4 33:51

Hypothetically Not with me, but maybe with somebody. I know.

Speaker 1 33:57

So I've got a guy that used to work for me from down in southwest Georgia and his cousin was a game warden. His cousin is a game warden and his cousin was a game warden. All right, his cousin is a game warden and he has gone out and just dressed, you know, like he's hunting and actually somehow I guess it was on public land or something, I think it was on Lake Seminole Hunted with this group of guys and just they're sitting there hunting and hunting, and man, they're killing birds and everything. And then they get done and then he starts writing tickets. You know, he never told me. I'm not gonna say who it was, but you know him well that has to be illegal I mean no, I've listened that has to be something

Speaker 3 34:44

by Amita in Stuttgart, arkansas, and we're in the flooded timber and we're just calling ducks and calling ducks and all of a sudden my buddy Yancey says who is that? And somebody had walked up in our group and they're propped up on a tree on the other side of our hole just calling with us. And I said I don't know, 't know, you know, okay, it's fine and you know. Things settle down and the ducks are gone. We didn't kill any. But the guy walks over and pulls his jacket open and here's a badge and he says fellas, I need to uh see some license. And uh, you know, and he checks us. But he had his call, he was walking around in there just checking people.

Speaker 3 35:28

That's crazy man, it is Undercover.

Speaker 2 35:31

In Arkansas, you can't have more than a box of shells.

Speaker 1 35:37

Well, not just biometer, but in biometer the rules in biometer change like the weather.

Speaker 3 35:40

This year you can have 25 shells again.

Speaker 4 35:43

What.

Speaker 3 35:43

It went down to 15. I thought it was 12. No, it went to 15.

Speaker 1 35:47

It was 15.

Speaker 3 35:48

And now you can have 25 again, but they can be no larger than a number two, so you can't shoot T's and BB's and stuff like that. So they check all that stuff. Now another Arkansas story, talking about game wardens. We got checked one time and we had shot geese and the limit of white-fronted geese, speckled bellies, was two a person and in shooting the geese we had killed one too many geese and we didn't try to hide it. We showed and talked to him and he said this is a quote. Now he said fellas, I understand. Showed and talked to him and he said this is, this is a quote. Now he said fellas, I understand. He said because when I was young I had a hard time counting turkeys and he wrote us a ticket and we paid the ticket.

Speaker 4 36:37

But that was, I mean, that was from him.

Speaker 4 36:39

So yeah, you know when I was 16 years old, um, me and a buddy of mine went turkey hunting. You know, you come, we went straight out of deer season. Next time I used my shotgun was turkey season. I really did think I'd put the plug in my gun. We go in, we end up like wading across a creek I mean, it was one of the greatest turkey hunts I've ever been on.

Speaker 4 37:03

You know, called in two birds, he killed one of them. We're walking out, and I remember we just heard the bushes tearing down and I'm we're like what's? What is going on? Well, two game wardens came running through the bushes and stopped us. And so they're like let us see, you know your guns and they start checking everything. I take my buddy's gun, shook out the three shells. He's good, take my gun. They start shucking out shells and I swear y'all I did not do this on purpose. But when he got to that third shell and it came out, and then he went to check the fourth and a fourth shell flew out. It was like it was in slow motion, spinning, and I'm like what happened? And so, um, I ended up getting a ticket, you know, but it was.

Speaker 4 37:55

It was so minimal I mean I don't think it was more than, like it wasn't more than a hundred dollars, which I a long time I mean that was a long time ago.

Speaker 2 38:04

We're basically promoting just do illegal stuff, no, hang on.

Game Wardens and Hunting Violations

Speaker 1 38:08

We are not promoting doing illegal stuff, we are not Like right now. So our string company, we're looking for people to join our R&D team, our research and development team, where we're sending out strings to them and we're sending them all over the country. You know, and I you know we haven't set a cap on this, because we want as many strings out there on as many bows as we possibly can, with people shooting them, whether it's somebody that's in target archery like we just sent a set yesterday to a guy in southern Texas that shoots target archery. We we sent a couple sets to a guy in uh alabama that does primarily well, we we set up his target bow and his hunting bow and so we have a questionnaire that people have to fill out.

Speaker 1 38:58

Well, one of those things on there is have you ever been convicted or given a ticket for a wildlife violation? Because if you have, that's like, no questions asked you or you do not qualify, yeah, done, that's it. You know I'm drawing the line right there, you know, and um, and I'm doing that because you know number one, I think it matters, you know, I mean I'll like, I'm not, I'm not asking people. You know how do you vote, or or any of that kind of stuff. But if you're not at least able to respect, you know, respect the laws or you know, listen, I get it if you make a mistake, like you know, your friend getting a dang felony for having a gun in his backseat, you know, well, come back to me two years from now when that's off your record and we'll, we'll work together, you know, but golly, that's, that's pretty crazy. That is pretty dang crazy, man.

Speaker 1 39:53

Um, but yeah, so if you're, if you would be interested in doing that, and you know, it's not like you have to have some kind of big social media following or something like that. That's not what we're looking for. I mean, if you you want to get the strings and post all about it on social media following or something like that, that's not what we're looking for. I mean, if you want to get the strings and post all about it on social media and all that kind of crap, you can if you want to.

Speaker 1 40:11

We are just looking for people to be testing our product period, because we want to make sure we feel like the product that is being made by our string company is really good. We feel really confident in the process that we have of building everything, but we want it being used in a lot of different environments and getting feedback about it, bringing the strings back in so we can go back over them after they've got a couple thousand shots through them, and stuff like that, so we can really see how things are holding up on a wide array of bows and everything. So that's something you'd be interested in. Get in touch with us because it'll be good, all right. So, speaking about you know I said earlier turkeys are not very forgiving, right. So in everything that we get to go out and we get to chase, whether it's fishing, like so probably the most forgiving thing that we're going to do is fish, right, because all you're doing is you're trying to get that fish to. You know, certain times you're just trying to get a reaction bite, right?

Speaker 2 41:21

Unless you're fishing in a stupid pond that barely has any fish in it.

Speaker 1 41:27

Well, there's got to be fish in the barrel. I mean, there's got to be fish in the barrel and there are fish in that barrel.

Speaker 3 41:36

You just can't catch them, you go try it, go try it.

Speaker 1 41:42

There's got to be fish in the barrel, all right. So, seriously, in all of our pursuits there are things that you know you can get away with doing stuff wrong. Hunting whitetail in the Southeast, that's what we talked about. You know they're, for whatever reason, they're super spooky and I think it's hard to, I think it's hard to to record, especially from a from a bow hunting standpoint in the Southeast. Man, we're hunting in really tight quarters, you know. Um, I think the guys that seek one do a really good job with their recording and everything like their videos are.

Speaker 1 42:15

They're really good now when they first started. Yeah, you know they. I mean it's anything you know, so here's here's one of the things that I'll say about that. If you're not embarrassed by, let's say, you've been doing something for 10 years, if you don't look back and see what you did 10 years ago and you're not a little bit embarrassed by it. You waited too late to start. If you try to wait until you've got everything perfect, that's so true, man, that is so true.

Speaker 1 42:44

I mean, think about you know, and that's in, that's in anything. Now I'm not saying you know, go out and do something, and even if you don't know how, like I mean, if you're going to be a, if you're going to be a brain surgeon, let's, let's be good at that before we start cutting on somebody. Perfect that a little more. Let's be really good at that first. Right, don't have to google it. No, yeah, let's not pull up a youtube video in the middle of a hip replacement.

Speaker 2 43:11

That that would make me uncomfortable if I was any kind of doctor yeah I, I mean whatever. I'm not that smart, so it wouldn't be a surgeon, but any kind of doctor would be like on my desk I'd have doctor for dummies, just for my patients to see that's funny, would be.

Speaker 3 43:23

Yes, you ever seen a video of a hip replacement surgery? I actually have uh no stacy my wife the other night. She was complaining that her hip was hurting and so randomly, I don't know, came across this video of a hip replacement and it looked like they were changing the axles on a 1972 ford sledgehammers and sawsaws and I sent that to her and I said how's your hip feel? She said not that bad yeah.

Speaker 1 43:54

So a friend of ours is actually about to have to have full hip replacement and so I was looking into it and I found like this, like almost like a computer rendering of it. You know it's not an found almost like a computer rendering of it. It's not an actual person, but it shows everything that has to happen, Because I was curious about what's this recovery going to be like or whatever man, it's going to be rough.

Speaker 3 44:19

Well, the surgery is actually rough, but if they do that surgery on you starting at 7 o'clock in the morning, by 5 o'clock that afternoon your butt's up walking up and down the halls of the hospital. I mean, the recovery is painful but it's not near as long as it used to be and they have you up moving right away.

Speaker 1 44:41

Yeah I think that's one of the things that they've learned with this stuff is that you know I mean I can remember somebody having you know, like a knee replacement or something like that. Like my granny had a knee replacement surgery 30 or 40 years ago and I can remember her being you know like they said don't walk. You know, don't do this, don't do that, and I think it affects, you know, the recovery time right, I mean, if you're not using something, it's just making it worse.

Speaker 3 45:12

But anyway, mom had open heart surgery and they had her up same day.

Speaker 4 45:17

Yeah, that used to be like you're in the hospital two weeks or something. I remember my granddaddy having it and he had two in the 80s and it was crazy like, but I mean they the second one, they gave him like a 30 chance of survival, you know, and now it's almost like a day surgery you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 45:35

It's crazy, that's wild, that's wild man. All right, so I'll go back to what I was saying. So we've got all these different pursuits that we can get into, and some things are more forgiving than others. Turkey hunting is going to be probably really close to the top of the list of not very forgiving. Right, you got to get it right, or you're just at least Easterns, yeah for Easterns that's what we've talked about.

The Art of Forgiveness

Speaker 1 45:59

So it makes me think about forgiveness and it's top of mind right now because I'm teaching on that this weekend. I'm starting a series talking about the seven sayings of Christ on the cross, and the first one he says is Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do, right. So one of the questions I wanted to ask this morning was and that is specifically the text that I'm looking at is Luke 23, 34. And Jesus said Father, forgive them. They know not what they do and they cast lots to divide as garments, which was a fulfillment of prophecy when that took place. So who is the most forgiving person that you know?

Speaker 4 47:00

Other than Jesus.

Speaker 2 47:01

Oh man, I was about to say no, no, no.

Speaker 1 47:03

The most forgiving? Yeah, not Christianese. That's not what we're looking for this morning. Who's the most forgiving person that you know? My wife. Oh man, there it is. That's good.

Speaker 4 47:15

I like that, If not like.

Speaker 1 47:18

No, I'm just giving you a hard time. That's good.

Speaker 4 47:20

No, seriously.

Speaker 1 47:21

If you're married.

Speaker 4 47:22

You need to say your wife. No, I'm 100% serious. If she weren't, then I'd have been kicked to the curb a long time ago.

Speaker 1 47:36

Yeah, all right, besides your wife, somebody that you're not in a covenant relationship with. Right, because that covenant that we have with our spouses that covers a lot of sin, that covers a lot of mistakes. Right, we're in a covenant relationship, we're in this together. You know, I'm going to forgive her, she's going to forgive me. She has to forgive me a whole lot more than I have to forgive her. Blah, blah, blah, right, cause I'm an idiot. She's not, I'm ugly, she's beautiful, all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 4 48:12

Right, she's smart, I'm dumb, she's smart.

Speaker 1 48:16

I'm dumb. She can talk. I can't. She can write, I can.

Speaker 1 48:19

You know, anyway, the whole, the whole, the whole spectrum, the whole gamut, outside of our covenant relationship with our wives, who's the most forgiving person that you know? The first person that came to my mind is a friend of mine, a mentor of mine. He's gone now, he's transitioned, he's graduated to glory. I'm like I've got to have somebody else. I go through and I start thinking and I was like first I got frustrated because I was like, man, why is this so hard?

Speaker 1 48:54

Yeah, you know, why is it so hard for me to say who's the most forgiving person? Because there's listen, if somebody is my friend, they, they are a forgiving person. Wes Chester is a forgiving person because I've done stupid stuff in his presence and he's forgiven me for it. And maybe it's because he's like that judge that says, well, I've done that before too. It's okay, absolutely, absolutely, but seriously. So let's start. I want to look at it from that angle. First, let's identify who's the most forgiving person, and it might be your mama, or it might be your granddaddy or whoever it is, but who is that person that's the most forgiving person that you know, like dub, when I asked the question last night, or his mama asked the question, I'm sitting over here on the couch, you know, kind of halfway watching baseball. And she asked the question because it was something we talked about yesterday.

Speaker 1 49:43

yeah, whatever, well, but I heard your, I heard your response and he saidly he pointed at me and she said you need to know more people. But I'll forgive her for that, right? Yeah, I mean obviously, because I'm very forgiven.

Speaker 4 50:00

Yeah, I was going to say you're probably the most forgiven. I'm kidding, I don't know. Gonna say you're probably the most forgiving, I'm kidding.

Speaker 3 50:06

Well, just off the cuff when you ask that it made me think. Why am I not the most forgiving person?

Speaker 1 50:20

sure, yeah, I mean, I think that that's a logical, I think that there's a convicting side to that question, right and um. So my followup question to that is how do we become that person that, when somebody else has asked that question, we're the person that they think?

Speaker 4 50:37

of yeah Right, yeah, yeah. I think the challenge is for me, it's easier to forgive or let things go than it is to trust again well forgiveness. All right, so let's, and it's not the same thing yeah, let's, let's not.

Speaker 1 51:00

I don't want to get too far into the weeds. Forgiveness is not necessarily restoration, right? So let's say and, and we can. We can look at this in extremes, or we can look at this in very simple things, but let's, let's look at it in extremes. Um, okay, um, what was the name of that movie? We watched the Forge. If you have not seen the Forge, you need to watch it. It is a what is the name of the group?

Speaker 1 51:33

Kendrick Brothers, kendrick Brothers movie. It is a really, really good movie. It ought to be a convicting movie for every man that watches it, and women too, but especially for men. It's really, it's really geared towards men and and how we should, how we should be doing things intentionally, doing things to build each other up and and being diligent about our relationships with other other guys and stuff like that. That's something we've talked about, you know, on the podcast before. But in that In that movie, there's an older couple that they kind of take on this young man to disciple him and to help him really become a man.

Speaker 1 52:16

His dad wasn't really involved in his life or anything and so he goes over to their house one day and, um, just the wife is there, the husband was gone doing something, or maybe he was upstairs changing or something like that. So he goes in and he's going over to eat eat supper with him and he sees a picture of a young man, you know, like up on the mantle or something like that, and they said, he said, oh, is this your son? And she said, yeah, he was he. Um, you know, we lost him, you know, several years ago, whatever. However, the story goes, watch the movie. I'm not doing a good job telling the story about that, but, um, their son was, was, uh, was killed in a car accident by a drunk driver, all right, and uh. So the story goes on, you know, the movie goes on, or whatever.

Speaker 1 53:08

And, um, they had this, this group of men that they called the forge, where they would get together once a month and they'd have a meal together and they talk about what was going on in their lives and they pray for each other. And um, um, they'd share, you know, and they'd share, you know, struggles that they were having where something didn't go the way they wanted it to, or they'd share a success about, you know, whatever was going on and regardless of what it was, they were looking for God in all of it. If something wasn't going right, they're looking for God in it. If something is going right, they're looking for God in that right, which I think is a good and healthy and proper way to do something. And then so he's talking to one of the guys that's there at the forge and he says, well, how do you know whatever the kind of patriarch guy, how do you know him? And he said, well, I'm the first guy that he came and discipled and he helped me, pulled me out of things or whatever. And he said, well, how did you meet him? And, um, he actually met him.

Speaker 1 54:16

The guy came and visited him while he was in prison. From he went, he had to. You know, he went to prison for killing his son and now they're in this great relationship. You know, and it's like, so I started to say that was a long way of saying. You know, forgiveness doesn't always mean restoration, um, but in some cases it does, but it wasn't necessarily. I guess that is still restoration. You know, even though he didn't have a relationship with this guy before man, he had every reason to hate that guy.

Speaker 1 54:47

Sure Right, because he, I mean, if somebody out of negligence it doesn't have to be drunk driving or something, but if somebody out of negligence were to kill my son today, or kill your son today, or kill one of your sons today, how would we respond to that? You know, I mean, how would we respond to that? You know, I mean I, how would we respond? Yeah, you know, if somebody came in my shop today and shot and killed my son, you know, just out of stupidity, how would I respond to that? You know, the moment it would not be good. I mean, in the moment I would potentially shoot and kill that person if that were to happen, because that would be, I mean, that would probably be my response, and there are tools in this shop for a response to a situation like that or such events.

Speaker 1 55:47

That can happen very quickly, so think twice before you come in this shop trying to act stupid okay.

Speaker 1 55:57

So, anyway, but how would we respond in a situation like that? And, like I said, that is an extreme. Let's look at a scenario that's not as extreme. Somebody said something bad about you, like the gossip that you talked about before, where somebody said just deplorable things about you. How do you respond to that? Yeah, how do you respond to that? How do you forgive that person and to what extent do you go to offer that forgiveness? So that's what I want to talk about.

Speaker 3 56:36

I can tell you that age has helped me a lot. You know, I'm not as young and dumb, as dumb as I was, and I tend I can't even say. I'd like to say it's forgiveness, but it's more like leave it alone.

Speaker 4 57:05

you know what I'm saying it just gets to where it doesn't, it doesn't bother you, I'm not looking for vengeance, I guess is what I'm saying, you know yeah, for me it's more about I know who I am in Christ. So people saying stuff like it doesn't I don't take it as much as an offense as I used to if that makes sense.

Speaker 4 57:35

So that helps some, but it's the bigger things. I guess that I have a harder time forgiving, okay, um, but typically it's over time and and I tell people that a lot it's not. Forgiveness is not always instantaneous. You know, sometimes forgiveness is a process, but I think it is.

Speaker 1 58:06

I don't think it happens on accident it has to be intentional.

Speaker 4 58:12

I think it has to happen through God's grace, so much more than our willpower. But we have to make a choice to press into to God for that ability to forgive. I mean, scripture is really clear Like we're called to forgive just as he's forgiven us, and that doesn't make it easy.

Speaker 1 58:37

Yeah, it's interesting as I've gone through and prepared for this study. One of the things that I've looked at is that the idea and I almost don't want to say this because I haven't really dug into it that deeply yet, but we can dig into it together a little bit One of the things that it says like it says forgive your brother 70 times seven, right. So basically over and over and over and over again, forgive your brother. And that means I need to forgive you and I need to forgive you. But it says it's a conditional forgiveness. It says if he repents, forgive him, right. If he repents, if he acknowledges man, I screwed up, I'm not going to let this happen again, all right, forgive him. And move on.

Speaker 1 59:24

Well, in those situations where that doesn't happen, where that person doesn't say you know what, I made a mistake, I did wrong, I acted wrongly, whatever, I shouldn't have done that, I shouldn't have said that. If they don't do that, then what do you do? Do we still need to forgive that person? Do we still need to to find a way to to? You know, like Wes, like you talked about, like it doesn't? I'm not, I'm not seeking vengeance on this and and and and everything, or kind of where. Where are we? Where do we sit on that? What do you think you can talk? Talk too. Drink some more of that liquid death so you'll wake up a little bit.

Speaker 4 1:00:04

I don't know what he had last night. Oh man, you drink all of it, it's water.

Speaker 1 1:00:10

It's liquid death, water, water, death. It doesn't help you wake up.

Speaker 4 1:00:15

Water death.

Speaker 1 1:00:16

It doesn't help you wake up. No, 20 calories, 4 grams sugar.

Speaker 3 1:00:23

What does it have in it? Nothing, it's just water. It's marketing, it's freaking water.

Speaker 2 1:00:29

You paid $8 for this. No, I paid $8 for3 of them.

Speaker 1 1:00:33

Oh, okay there you go and people say eggs and gas are expensive.

Speaker 4 1:00:45

So that's the question again. John, Ask the question one more time. I forgot it.

Speaker 3 1:00:53

Something to do about the person. Oh, that's unrepentant yes.

Road Rage and Forgiveness in Daily Life

Speaker 4 1:00:58

So I heard somebody say this one time and again. I'm terrible at remembering. If you ran it for long enough, you can just say it's yours, but this is 100, not mine, and you'll know by the the fact that it is a good saying. But the saying is that unforgiveness and not forgiving somebody is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die, yeah, that's good. And so to me, whether they are repentant or not, I mean, if you hold on to it, it's just killing you on the inside and so many times.

Speaker 4 1:01:37

How many times have we maybe laid awake at night or driven down the road thinking about a situation and it's robbing us of joy, it's robbing us of life and the other person.

Speaker 4 1:01:48

They're sleeping like a baby oh, they don't care, they're there and and we're the ones that are just stewing over it and it's killing us, but they're not affected by it. And it's almost like sometimes we feel like if we hold on to it, it affects them, but so many times they don't care, they're just affected by it. And it's almost like sometimes we feel like if we hold on to it, it affects them, but so many times they don't care, they're just moving on with life.

Speaker 1 1:02:07

Yeah, you know, I mean, it could be as simple as somebody cutting you off in traffic, you know, and you get mad, you know, and it's like, and it's like they don't even realize, you know, they're living rent free in your mind, yeah, and they're going on with their day. They didn't intentionally cut you off, right? I mean, maybe sometimes they did, I don't know. But let's just give them the benefit of the doubt. They didn't intentionally cut you off, it just happened. But, man, it made your blood boil, right. You got so frustrated and you didn't take it to the point that you're like, going up to them and you know, following them wherever they're going and getting out and saying, hey, what's wrong with you, man, you know, I mean, I've never done that before. Wes, have you done that before?

Speaker 3 1:02:53

No, okay, All right, no the one. And when my wife hears this she's going to just stick it in and twist that knife. When you saw the same sign, I saw a mile back that says right lane closed in one mile.

Speaker 2 1:03:09

Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:03:09

And you try to get all the way to the front and then you want me to let you in? Yeah, that gets me man.

Speaker 4 1:03:16

The surest way for me not to get over in the right lane is to get on my bumper. Way for me not to get over in the right lane is to get on my bumper, like if you get on my bumper and I'm passing somebody and you're just right up on me like not moving, it's not. It's not moving.

Speaker 1 1:03:30

You're gonna have to go so what I'm hearing is where y'all need prayer is when you're driving.

Speaker 4 1:03:34

We're petty hey I'm just telling you, man, that that that makes me so aggravated. And you know, I think drivers in general, we're just getting worse. I don't know if it's because we're so distracted, but it seems like that's happening. So, yeah, y'all can pray for me for road rage, what?

Speaker 2 1:03:55

is going on. I saw somebody cross from the Duncan parking lot over there on Fair Road all the way over into the turn lane. I mean they missed me by like five feet and the cool thing about the truck I drive is I can block a lot of people with that because it's huge.

Speaker 3 1:04:15

You ought to drive the dog truck. Buddy, Drive the dog truck.

Speaker 1 1:04:19

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 1:04:21

No, we're in such a hurry, yeah, we are in such a hurry to get where we're going, especially college students that everybody, just you know, and and I, I'm guilty yeah, I am, I'm guilty of it and we talked this morning. Coming through statesboro this morning at 6 30 it was like a colony of ants people really everywhere yeah, so I, I stay pretty much on the outside.

Speaker 1 1:04:46

I'm on the outside of you know what I call the loop, but this little intersection right down here, um, they've fixed it, they've, they've done some stuff to to change the timing of the lights and stuff which has made it better, but man, that little intersection can get so backed up.

Speaker 4 1:05:03

Try to go that way on sunday morning about go that way go that way about one o'clock or five or 12, 30 or so when you let your crew out man it's like it's ridiculous when we were moving.

Speaker 2 1:05:14

Yeah we were coming from our house to here on a sunday. It took us seven lights to go through.

Speaker 1 1:05:22

Yeah, that was before they fixed the timing. It was before they put in the turn lane and stuff on the other side. But yeah, it was.

Speaker 4 1:05:32

That's definitely for me like one of those things where it just gets all over me.

Speaker 2 1:05:38

Because they put that horn in such a convenient spot. Yeah, he just gets all over me Because they put that horn in such a convenient spot.

Speaker 1 1:05:41

Yeah, all right. So we've identified at least an area that you know we need to work on. And I heard somebody a couple weeks ago. He said that he was in such a hurry and was so upset that there was this accident and it bagged up a bunch of traffic. And you know he's going through and he finally gets up and he sees the accident and everything and he's like finally good grief, finally got past this. Well, later in the day he was like man, I didn't even stop and pray for this people. Yeah, you know, somebody was hurt. You know there was two ambulances out there. It was not a good situation and he's like I didn't even stop and pray for this people. You know what, where, what is wrong with me? You know and and I think, yeah, absolutely we need to stop and do that.

Speaker 1 1:06:27

So I'll tell you um, several years ago, in our first location, before we ever expanded, um to take up the, the whole building at our first location and everything we had a young man break in and steal a bunch of crossbows. And let me tell you he knew not what he did, right? Because, let's say, you break into Dunham's and steal some crossbows, four or five crossbows. Well, you know you've stolen, you know $1,500 worth of stuff or whatever. He got off with like $27,000 in crossbows, you know, because some of these crossbows we have in here, I mean they're, they're 3 500 bucks, 4 500 bucks, you know it doesn't take long to add up when you're doing that.

Speaker 1 1:07:08

So our alarm goes off, my phone goes off and it's, you know, an alert from the alarm system. I pull it up and I'm like what? What's going on? It? It says glass break and motion sensors and I'm like this ain't good, you know. So I pull up, you know, unlock my phone and I pull up the cameras and I look and, sure enough, there's a dude in the store. And that store was only, you know, five minutes from our house. So I just throw some shoes on and boom, I'm out the door and get up there and he's gone. You know um he was. He was in the store for like 62 seconds. Wow, from the time he broke the glass to the time he walked back out the door, he was in there for 62 seconds this ain't the first time he'd done it no, no, no.

Speaker 1 1:08:01

And and he was in the store longer because you know we will. At times we'll reorganize the store. All the guys that work for me hate it. They're like, oh my gosh, Mr John's at it again, he wants to change stuff up. I'm not doing it for a security standpoint. I'm doing it, you know, because from a retail standpoint, people will come in and they get into a habit of okay, I'm going to walk this way, I'm going to go over, I'm going to grab this and I'm going to, you know, speak to the guys and, you know, grab some arrows and then I'm going to make my way out. Well, if we'll reorganize things, it'll cause people to say, oh, I didn't know you had this.

Speaker 1 1:08:36

Yeah, that's right, I'm not trying to position things so people will see it. Sometimes just simply moving it will cause somebody to see it, whether they buy it or not. They may go and say, oh, I saw that at Bow Trader the other day. Why don't you go check that out? Anyway, so when he came in the store he went to where the crossbows used to be. I mean, you could see him playing his day. There was like four different cameras looking at him and he went over to where the crossbows used to be and he freaked out because they weren't there anymore. So then he looks around the store it was a very small store, it was like a thousand eleven hundred square feet is what we started out with. So he looks and he sees the crossbows. He runs over, grabs like six crossbows somehow, you know, and goes running out the store. He didn't even open the door, he just went, you know, under the handle where he had broken the glass, and um, and you know he's, he's gone 62 seconds or 68 seconds or something like that, and um, so I go up there and then the police shows up. Um, a little bit later, like you know, a couple minutes after I got there. I'm already in the store, you know, walking around like where the heck is this guy at? You know, I don't know what I'm going to do. I didn't. You know.

Speaker 1 1:09:47

I talk about that forgiveness thing and what would happen in a situation like that. I'm not killing somebody or something like that for somebody stealing something. Listen, if you're going to steal something, steal it. I got you on camera. We're going to pursue you. But if you're going to threaten life, you got problems. That's the way I look at it. If you're going to steal something, steal something. If you're going to threaten life, I'm coming back at you and it ain't going to be pretty and I'm not going to fight. Fair Period.

Speaker 2 1:10:16

Yeah, if you didn't know my dad back in high school obviously I didn't, but I've heard stories he might turn back into his old self. That's not good. You don't want that the old is gone, the new is here, yep jesus until it's not yeah, yeah, you don't, you don't want that you don't want somebody that can bitch 500 pounds mad at you anyway.

Speaker 1 1:10:39

So but anyway. So I got some stuff to block up the door. I mean, I think I used cardboard that night, or no, no, no, I had a piece of plywood or something and I screwed it up to the door, so it was. I mean, what are the chances of somebody breaking in again at this point? So we just did that, turned the alarm system back on, talked with a police officer, you know, and that was pretty much it. And I went home.

Speaker 1 1:11:08

I get home and everybody's up, you know, everybody's like, oh my gosh, what's going on? You know, and I go in there, I think you were, you were up sitting in the living room with your mom and I went in there and you know I'm upset, you know, I'm like, you know you feel violated when something like that happens. You know, at best you feel violated, at worst You're like I'm gonna kill this guy. You know. And I went in there and I, you know, told them what happened and I said, guys, you know what? We need to pray for this guy right now, cause I looked at it on the camera and you could, you could tell it was a young guy. I said we need to pray for this guy right now, because he is making a terrible choice in his life. He's young and he's starting out on the wrong foot. And we did. We stopped and I don't know if Allie was up or not, but I know you and your mom were up and we sat right there in the living room. I sat on the table and y'all were sitting in the chair and on the couch and we prayed for that young man right there and prayed that number one that I wouldn't let anger take root in my heart and my soul towards this person.

Speaker 1 1:12:16

Yes, I wanted there to be, I wanted justice and I wanted the wanted, you know, the situation to to be corrected. But and I wanted him to have a consequence for what he did, because consequences help us learn Right, um, but I, I didn't wish bad towards him. You know, I wanted, I wanted there, I wanted there to be restoration and I wanted him to get put back on the, on the right track, or maybe get on the right track for the first time. I, I don't know. You know, long story short, we never, never got any kind of leads or anything.

Learning to Forgive Deeper Wounds

Speaker 1 1:12:56

Uh, the outside camera uh, was not functioning properly. It was you know, we live in south georgia a lot of humidity, the lens was fogged up, couldn't see his, couldn't see his license plate or anything. We could see what kind of car it was, um, but you know, um, six-bar pd chased a little bit and um, nothing was there. So, anyhow, it was just a crazy situation. But I don't know why. That was my response. You know I don't want to sit here and say, man, I'm so holy. You know, I prayed for this guy. I didn't want to. I mean, I'm just going to tell you I wanted to pinch that dude's head off in the moment.

Speaker 4 1:13:37

I was pretty upset you know.

Speaker 1 1:13:41

But I realized the vertical side of it was man there's, he's making some pretty critical mistakes and I really don't want to see that for anybody. So that is just an experience that I had where, you know, I was faced with a, I was faced with a choice.

Speaker 1 1:14:04

Basically is is is the way that I, that I look at that so um, but then, just like you guys, somebody will cut me off or I'll get frustrated. You know, driving on the interstate, on I-16, it's always I-16 for some reason, and it's like. You know why do these people drive like this? How do they even have a driver's license? I think once you get to a certain age, you need to like have to retake your test every few years, like legit, you know, not just when you're 16. You need to retake it when you're 21,. Right, and make sure that you haven't done something to kill all your brain cells between 16 and 21 and can still drive.

Speaker 3 1:14:49

I don't think it's that. I don't think it's that at all. So yesterday we get to the school where we're umpiring baseball and me and my partner park away from the field, umpire and baseball and me and my partner park away from the field and as we're getting dressed, this young girl comes and parks, just blocks everybody in. I mean, she could see where we were parked and there were some other trucks parked back there, but she parked right in the middle of the road and blocked everybody in. And I looked at my partner and I said you know, did she do that for self-convenience? Because she didn't think about anybody else? And I think that's what happens a lot of times. I got to get where I'm going, I'm going to cut, I've got to get in that fast lane and cut this. They don't think about anything but, themselves.

Speaker 3 1:15:48

And you know what I've caught myself doing it.

Speaker 4 1:15:53

Yeah we have that happen in our people leaving after service. If it's a crowded Sunday and we've had people swerve at our parking attendance like that are serving, like I've had people lick them off cuss at them absolutely, man, good grief, and uh, that's when I get to have fun the next sunday, um, with just yelling at people, but anyway, we were driving that black tacoma.

Speaker 2 1:16:20

Yeah, yeah, come up here to the front.

Speaker 4 1:16:21

Yeah, but seriously, I mean people are that that we think about ourselves. I mean it goes back to that same thing of, typically, who's the first person you think about in the morning when you wake up. It's usually what you have to do. You know what I mean. And I think too, the toughest thing to forgive like you know, if somebody pulls that in front of you it makes you mad, but it's not like you dwell on it for days I think the toughest things to forgive are relational.

Speaker 4 1:16:54

You know, those relational things where you put trust in somebody and they break that trust or they do something that hurts you, or those are the ones that are much to me much more difficult to forgive. Um, and you know those those sting the most. Um, when you have people in your life that you tell you that they, they love you and tell you that you know, and then turn around and you know something happens and they're gone and that relationships over pretty much. You know those are the harder things to me, and I talked to a lot of people who have gone through bad marriages. They've, whatever it might be, and or someone is, you know, molested them or something that's a very serious thing, and they're like how am I supposed to forgive this person? You know, and I think, again, that's where I think it comes back to a process, because I think even guilt comes with not being able to forgive, like I know I should forgive but I can't. I cannot forgive this person for what they did to me, and something like that.

Speaker 4 1:18:17

And you know, that's where I just encourage them that, hey, it's a process, like ask the Lord to help you, because you know, talk to other people about it as much as you can, but it's definitely challenging, you know, to be able to forgive those serious offenses like that and a lot of people serious offenses like that, Um and and a lot of people really struggle with that.

Speaker 3 1:18:46

Especially when the other person sees none of it.

Speaker 4 1:18:50

Yeah, or they turn it back on you.

Speaker 3 1:18:53

You and I had a situation with a person who just they could care less. It was all about them. No matter what you've done for them in the past, how much you've done for them, it was all about them. Yeah, and I will tell you that it was tough for me, but I have grown from that experience.

Speaker 4 1:19:17

Right.

Speaker 3 1:19:18

And it has basically changed my life yeah, yeah the way I look at things and the way I go about things now from that one person, and they still have no clue.

Speaker 4 1:19:31

Yeah, no clue I think the other thing, too, that I have to remember is, at some point and more than one point I've been the offender.

Speaker 3 1:19:44

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 1:19:44

You know Listen we probably offend somebody every day. We've probably said something during this hour and 18 minutes we've been sitting here that has offended somebody. Yeah.

Speaker 4 1:19:56

Not intentionally.

Speaker 1 1:19:57

No, right, but I mean, it doesn't matter if it was intentional or not.

Speaker 4 1:20:01

And then it comes back to am I willing to offer the same grace that I would want them to offer me? Yep, and I mean, that stuff's not easy, man. That's the stuff that you, for me, and I think, for all of us who are believers, we have to really lean into God for.

Speaker 1 1:20:18

Well, because it's not natural, it's not a natural part of our flesh to say I'm going to give grace to somebody.

Speaker 1 1:20:25

Yeah, you know, that's when we, when we get to this point where we say we're going to live on our own morality and all this kind of stuff, we don't in and of ourselves, we don't have morality. We don't. It's not a, it's not, it's not naturally just ingrained in who we are right. I mean, the Bible says there are none good, no, not one right. It says all have sinned and fall short. So we have to at some point acknowledge that and acknowledge that there is a need for a Savior for us. So let's go back to that text that I looked at. Jesus said Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. There is a need for a Savior for us. So let's go back to that text that I looked at. Jesus said Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Speaker 1 1:21:08

Well, they knew that they had nailed Jesus, the God-man. They knew he had been nailed to the cross. They knew he had been crucified. They had called for him to be crucified. They'd called for this terrible wretched death. You've got to go in four minutes, so we're going to wrap this up. They, this terrible wretched death. I know you've got to go in four minutes, so we're going to wrap this up.

Final Thoughts on Forgiveness

Speaker 1 1:21:24

They knew that, they knew the physical thing that they had done, but they did not understand. They did not understand that they had nailed the God-man to the cross. They thought they nailed a lunatic to the cross, right. And so Jesus was praying to the father to forgive them for, for what they had truly done, because they didn't see it, that's right. They had no idea. They had no idea what they had really done, right. So, and we talk about, you know, like situation that you were talking about, that guy. He has no, I mean, he's just, he thinks he's, he thinks he's, he thinks he is justified, he's right, and the way he was behaving was okay. And you know, buddy, I was pretty quick to tell him listen, I, I don't, I don't know if I don't know if this is how you treat everybody or if this is the the way that you behave, but I can tell you right now we're we're not going to be doing business together Like it'll. It will not happen again.

Speaker 1 1:22:25

You know, I don't wish, I don't wish bad for you. I don't want you know, I don't want you to lose your business or anything like that. But I'm telling you, if this is the way that you're acting all the time, buddy you that the other foot is going to drop at some point. You know to drop at some point, sure you know, because this is this is ridiculous, yeah, but anyway, and it was over something that was so stupid and simple. I mean, good grief that. That was the crazy part to me. I, I, you know, whenever the the first interaction happened, I sent wes a message and I'm like, hey, is this, is this guy for real?

Speaker 1 1:22:58

right yeah, I mean this is crazy man, but anyway, and and he was for real, I mean, because it went on and on and on, I was finally like no, we're done, we're good.

Speaker 3 1:23:09

Yeah um, I want, I want, there's a group called old 60, um, and they have a song. It's called brother joe. I want you to go listen to that song and listen to the lyrics. And I'm not going to tell you the whole story and I'm not going to tell you how it goes. But I sent that song to a preacher friend of mine and I said I just want you to listen to it and he texted me back and he said man, that was powerful, but it's about forgiveness and it's about the way the guy handled forgiveness. Um, it's pretty cool, just go and listen to this.

Speaker 1 1:23:54

All right, there's your homework. Look up the group old 60 and, uh, listen to the song brother joe, I'm sure it's on spotify or apple music or something like that. But all right, we're gonna wrap it up. Brandon's got a meeting he's got to get to, so we're gonna, we're gonna kill it for today and, uh, it's a good conversation, guys, it's. You know when, when you get into it and you really start diving into this stuff and we always get to, we always get to tie it into. You know, our, our, our, our sporting adventures right, because it's all connected. Yeah, you know, we look at something that's unforgiving, like a turkey, and then we look at ourselves and we're like man, we're just a bunch of stupid turkeys. Do you think the turkey is just trying to stay alive? Yeah, in the reality of it, an animal is just trying to stay alive, period, that's it. And he's trying to make babies. Yeah, the end, that's the way animals work.

Speaker 1 1:24:57

That's the biggest difference between humans and animals. Yeah, that's the biggest difference between humans and animals. Yeah, they have a pretty limited mindset and we have this huge sweeping ability to have very complex thoughts and emotions. And all this kind of stuff, regardless of what Disney or Pixar or whatever it is, tells you that ain't the way animals work.

Speaker 2 1:25:20

Yeah, that's not the way they work. Sorry, your dog doesn't love you.

Speaker 1 1:25:23

Yeah, and he ain't going to be in heaven with you. My bad, all right, we're gone. Hit the button, let's go.