Allen: A lot of people talk about sports heroes like Michael Jordan, Troy Aikman, Joe Montana, and even Clay Cooper as being mentally tough. When it comes down to the wire, they have mentally prepared themselves for the challenge. In roping, mental toughness is crucial. I break roping down into three parts: horsemanship, mechanics and mental toughness. Horsemanship and mechanics are a big part of roping, but a roper’s overall success is largely due to his/her mental toughness. The same is true with life. Every day is going to present challenges that we need to be ready for. And then there are going to be big challenges that come along when our mental toughness will be a big factor in how we handle it.

 Clay: Your approach to different situations will often determine the outcome. You have to make an effort to control your thoughts and conform that to God’s word. Daily there are situations where I have to control my thoughts to where I’m not worried. The Bible tells us not to worry (Matthew 6:25-30). God has it under control; he sees the big picture when we can’t. So if we trust in him, if we seek to do his will, then we don’t have to worry about things – God will take care of it for us.  But we have to make a conscious decision to not worry about it, but let God have control of the situation.

 Allen: The first chapter in James talks a lot about facing trials and tribulations:

 ²Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. ⁴Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. ⁵If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. ⁶But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. ⁷That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; ⁸he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.(James 1:2-8)

 That whole verse outlines how we need to respond in the face of trials. No one is free from trouble; we are all going to encounter it. But how we handle it is really what shapes us.

 Clay: The world teaches us to trust our own ability to think clearly and handle situations appropriately on our own. But we simply can’t handle things on our own. We need wisdom, guidance and comfort that only God can provide. God wants us to trust him and trust his word. He wants us to conform our thinking to his word. The Bible tells us how we are supposed to think, which will lead to how we are going to react in the face of a trial.

 Allen: Just like James says, we are going to face trials. Whether you are roping, or raising kids, or whatever, you are going to face trials. We need to have enough faith in what the word of God says that we do things specifically like he tells us. God is very serious about us doing things his way. He has set things up for us to be successful. He wants us to be overcomers and winners, but we need to play by his rule book. If we don’t play by the rule book, how can we blame him?

 Clay: The way God wants us to react in the face of trials isn’t something we learn overnight. It is matured in us day by day, as we get more of God and his word in our life. Once we realize how God thinks and how he wants us to act, then we can experience God’s presence in our life and see him at work. The word tells us to trust in the Lord with all our heart, all our mind and all our soul; and to lean not on our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6). We need to lean on God’s understanding of the situation when we need help getting the right perspective. If we make it a habit to seek God first, then we are practiced in controlling our thoughts and conforming them to the word of God.  Then when a situation arrives, little or big, we place ourselves under the provision of God and that basically open the door for him to move in the situation. There is just so much peace in letting God handle things for you. Peter tells us, “Cast your cares on God because he cares for you.”(1 Peter 5:7)  There are going to be situations in life where we have to mentally choose to put it in perspective and put it in God’s hands.

 Allen: This past month has been a great example of that. We have had some unbelievable things happen this past month. As many of the readers might know by now, on January 26,  Cactus Ropes burned to the ground.  All good things come from God; all bad things come from the devil. The first thing the enemy wants is for worry, fear and doubt to come into our minds.  But God tells us to take every thought captive and obey his word (2 Corinthians 10:5).  The first thing that came to my mind was that God is bigger than any fire or any circumstance. Because I have made it a practice to go to God immediately in the face of trials, I immediately wanted to think about what God wanted me to think. I knew that all things work together for good for those that love God (Romans 8:28), so I knew he could cause good things to come from something as devastating as a fire. While the fire was still burning, Cactus Ropes manager Mike Piland, gathered several people up and they prayed over the situation. He prayed for wisdom, just like it tells us to in James (James 1:5).  That’s the only way to handle a situation like that, to invite God in to handle it.  Then two days after the Cactus Ropes fire, my 14-year-old son, Joel was in a major 4-wheeler wreck at our house. He hit two iron gates going fast on the four-wheeler. When I came up on him, he was laying on the asphalt in a pool of blood. Again, the first thing I did was go to God. I just knelt down and prayed over Joel and placed him in God’s hands. That arrested the worry and doubt that wanted to creep into my mind. They airflighted him to the hospital in Fort Worth where they had to put over 50 stitches in his face. His eyes were swollen shut, he had a huge goose-egg on his forehead and on the back of his head.  They did a CAT-scan and ran tests on him. They reported he had a bruise on his brain and blood between his skull and brain. They told us he could have seizures, brain damage, horrible head aches and that they might have to do surgery. They just kept telling us all kinds of things that make fear and doubt want to enter your mind. But I just kept confessing that he was healed by the stripes of Jesus (Isaiah 53:5) and he was in God’s care. His first night in the hospital Joel was unconscious, but I read him Psalm 91 over and over and over. I would recommend people reading that and praying it over their family and property. We had so many of our Christian friends called in praying for him. Jacky Stephenson and Trey Johnson called in and I held the phone to Joel’s ear while they prayed for him.  He was unconscious but they prayed for immediate heeling, for him to not have any pain and to not have any lasting side effects. The next morning he was off morphine. He hasn’t had any headaches and his face has healed so quickly most people don’t even know anything happened to him. When your child is laying there helpless and hurting, it is easy to feel weak and overcome. But that is the most important time to be mentally tough, to pray and not doubt.  God did not give us the spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and self-discipline (1 Timothy 1:7). Our power comes from our decision to allow God to unleash his power on the situation. Giving God access to the situation requires obedience and self-discipline on our part.

 Clay: God tells us to not be anxious about anything, but through prayer and supplication present our requests to him (Philippians 4:6). It does take self-discipline to not worry. But when you realize that God is faithful in his response to the situation, then you realize you don’t have to worry. Everything thing we do starts with a thought. When we have the word of God as our thoughts, then that is also our actions. God has it covered. He is way ahead of us in every way.  That’s what makes life interesting and fun. He already knows what we are going to face and has life ready for us to live peacefully and joyously. The battle is within us to make a decision to do it God’s way. But every time we chose God, God never fails us.

 Allen: We are always telling you to read your Bible. Some of you may think it is boring or hard to read. But I just can’t tell you enough how important it is to know what the word of God says. It isn’t there just to guide your life; it is there to help you live your life to its fullest. When you are in a situation and you start quoting scripture, you are speaking God’s words. It’s like you are downloading God’s word into your subconscious all the time you are reading the Bible. Those words from the Bible are release God’s power, they are saying what God has to say about the situation. By speaking God’s words, you are denying the devil to have any power in the situation and completely letting God have control. But just like it says in James, you have to have FAITH that God will handle the situation (James 1:6) in the best way for you. If you don’t have faith, then he doesn’t even want you to ask (James 1:7-8).