[00:00:01] Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in to the Met Church podcast. Here at the Met, we are all about connecting people to God and one another. If you have any questions or want more information about what's happening here at the church, then head to our
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[00:00:25] Speaker B: Well, good morning. It's great to see all of you and I'm so happy to have a very special guest, a good friend of mine who is here for our 9:30 service, Dusty Tuckness. And what an unusual guy. He is an incredible athlete. The Fort Worth Rodeo is in town and Dusty and. And Nathan Harp, I think is here this morning as well. They're working all of those performances. He has been to the National Finals, which is the super bowl of Rodeo World, 16 times as a bullfighter. He has been voted for. Yeah, that, that's pretty impressive.
And even more than that, he has been voted for 10 years. He is the 10 time world champion PRCA Bullfighter of the year. They call him in the rodeo world the Goat. And he is certainly the Goat. And I am so happy that he could be here this morning. And you're gonna love to hear from Dusty. It's a beautiful fitting right into our series on healthy and the disciplines it takes to be healthy. And this man lives that each and every day. Would you welcome my friend, Mr. Dusty Tutnus. Dusty, come on out, brother.
Make yourself at home. None of these people are going to chase you like you happen at your job.
[00:01:40] Speaker C: I know, right?
[00:01:41] Speaker B: All right, brother.
[00:01:42] Speaker C: Well, how's everybody doing today?
Good. Well, I appreciate brother Bill having me come today, this morning, share with y'all. He's asked me to come for the last few years now, and it's been great. I think that's kind of all our calling in life in one way or form is to go out and preach the gospel, share your life, share your testimony, what God has done in it. And today, you know, I was kind of thinking about what I wanted to share and what I wanted to talk about. Obviously, I want to talk and share with what God's done in my life, through my life.
But there's a part of of what I wanted to start with and it's part of my testimony. And some of you guys have heard my story, parts of my story. But I just felt like somebody today needed to hear this part. I'm going to try to be a little short on it. So I Can get to the point of, you know, what we're talking about. You guys are on a series of health. And there's so many aspects in life that that can refer to. And we can all experience things or have experienced things in that in life. But part of my testimony is one thing that it can shorten it up is some of the hardest things we have to do in life turn into being the best things that we end up doing in life. And part of my testimony I want to share there is when I was young, my parents were divorced at a young age, so I was living with my mom. And then on the summers I travel with dad to go to rodeos.
And there was something about rodeos that drew me to it. I didn't know what it was or the whole concept of it at that time, but there was a moment where there was a transition I was considering or wanting to make the move and live with a dad. And for you mothers out there, this isn't kind of the phone call you want from a child or as a child, you don't want to make this phone call to your mom. But that moment still, to this day, has been one of the hardest things I ever had to do in life, is call my mom and basically said, I didn't want to live with you anymore. Our relationship's always been good, still great to this day. She's my number one fan. But in that moment, it was very hard for me. But I'm grateful and thankful that she allowed me to make choices. She supported my choices, even though if she wasn't so thrilled with some of my choices.
And that was kind of the starting point of where God, I think, started to. Started to work and move in my life. I moved in with my dad, which allowed me to be around the rodeo a lot more. And I was intrigued with it. I started fighting bulls way too young.
There's only very few other guys that I know that started as young as I did.
And early on in my career, and I don't even know how to say there was a career quite yet, but freshman in high school, I got in a pretty bad wreck, pretty bad accident and busted my chin, broke ribs, beat me up pretty good, sent me to the hospital. And it was pretty spooky at that point in my life.
But it wasn't until a couple weeks after that that I can honestly say fear and nerves struck me for the first time in my life. And what I mean is, when we went to a rodeo and that same bull that put me in the hospital come out of the come out Buckingham. And for the first time, like I said, I experienced fear and anxiety and nervous and I was scared. And I grew up with two older brothers, so you kind of had to fill in where you could get in. And so you had to be tough, you kind of had to be hard headed. You couldn't be a tattletale. And so that was a big changing point in my life. And a lot of people don't know that part about my story. My career pretty much could have ended before it ever started.
And through that, but that movement of being able to move in with my dad, they started a rodeo Bible camp in Matizi, Wyoming, where he's from. It's called Becoming Champions Rodeo Camp. And that was the opportunity that me making that movement with dad allowed me to go to this Bible camp. At the time, it didn't intrigue me about the Bible part. It was about the rodeo camp. I was going to go and try to figure this out, try to get over this bump in the road or whatever it is. There was just still something that I felt like I was getting pulled to.
I come to find out real quick that I went to a Bible camp that allowed me to fight bulls. And that was the greatest change in my life. You know, that's when I received Christ, my Lord and Savior. I understood that I had a purpose, I had identity, I had gifts, I had somebody that walked through life with me. And from that moment on, things started changing within three days. Like the guy that fought the last event was not anywhere close to the guy that is now starting to get back involved in it and actually participating. And so that was that first big change in that movement years down the road. You know, it's. It's good to reflect and look back at times and especially the good and how far you've come. And I think God, you know, uses that so because we as humans want to know why, when, what, where and how. And sometimes God doesn't give us that.
So as I look back years down the road, we experienced another crossroads. Stepdad at the time that basically helped raise myself and my two older brothers.
My mom and them were getting split and that was a hard time life again. And at that moment, I can remember sitting there, we ended. It was around Mother's Day. So me and my brothers showed up. Surprised. My mom we get there.
Long story short, I could just remember I was given a book called Jesus Calling. I'm sure some of you have read it, still read it.
And I just remember grabbing it and said, mom, I just feel like I'm supposed to give you this.
And I said, I don't know why, what, how, or when. Whatever I said, I just take.
Wasn't until a couple weeks later after that, when mom started calling, she said, dusty, I don't know how to explain it. I don't know what to say. But everything I'm going through in life right now, like, I'm reading it, you know, day or night or whatever, and I'm like, that was such a cool moment in a son's life to see this change in your mom's life. And through that, you know, she's given her life to God and changed her life. So I. The message on that part of my testimony that I felt somebody needed to hear today is the hardest things you'll go through in life turn into being some of the best things that. That you'll experience and go through in life. So hopefully that I can encourage you on that.
What I kind of wanted to get into is, you know, like, Brother Bill's talking on the health and. And fitness or. Or the disciplines of life, physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally. But. But I'm gonna touch on a little bit of a testimony a few years back. Some of you have heard some of the story, but a couple years ago, the end of 2021, you know, we had a pretty good injury, a pretty good wreck at the nfr.
I sustained a compound fracture, my tib fib.
It was quite the day, I'll just say that. But, you know, like he said, the NFR is a Super bowl rodeo. You know, we work all year hard or all. All year long and work hard to achieve that, to get there that year, I got to be there with Cody Webster, Nathan Harp, which. I think Harp's here somewhere. Give Harp around applause, please, wherever he's at.
Anyways, great team. We had a lot of fun. Things were rolling and going, clicking along, and, you know, just. It's a game of inches, you know, it's definitely. It could have been any one of us, something we've done a thousand times. Stepping in between the bull and the bull rider, the bull swung around, kind of reached out the hook at me, and when he did, he stepped on the side of my leg and caused him that break. And the game of rodeo, for those of you who have been involved in it or know about it or experienced it, there's an old saying that says it's not if you get hurt, it's when and how bad. And so injuries are going to happen, and you got to be accepting of that.
But the difference of this type of injury for me is when you do get injured or beat up, you can kind of have an idea if it's upper body, lower body, or, you know, okay, he's hurt. I just don't know what it is. But when you look down and a limb of your body is pointed in a direction that it's not supposed to be in, it can, you know, play with your mind, play with your head, and it can be a hard thing to kind of overcome. So I knew 2022 was going to look different for me.
You know, going into surgery that next day, I still wanted to have the faith enough to believe that I would be there for the 10th round.
Obviously, I wasn't in the arena dirt with Harp and Webb, but, you know, I still made it a point to show up and be a part of it and watch them take care of the guys.
So having 2022 going to look a little different. The one thing that I continue to think, and I just knew there was more to this story, and I knew that God had a plan and things were gonna work out. And that's just really what I try to focus in on, that it wasn't about me, you know, but it could. This. There. There's something to this. And I just wanted to really try to keep that type of a mindset as I went through this.
You know, sometimes when you go through trials in life, that's all we have to lean on is that faith. And for me, the things that I've been through and dealt with in life, that's enough for me. Because that's one thing that they can never take from you if you truly believe in it. You know, our joy doesn't come from things of this world. It comes from the above. And the more we can plug into our joy from. From above than. Than earthly things. This. This stuff can be happiness and bring some fun to our lives, but true joy never does leave us.
So I could remember laying around and having visions of being back at the Thompson Mac and fighting bulls there again. I just didn't know when, what, how, or what I'd have to go through. And it, you know, kind of. It's kind of funny sometimes. Have you guys ever wondered that God will give you the vision and just never the plan?
Anybody experience that?
Yeah, and you kind of fight and struggle with it at times, but I think.
I think there's joy in that.
I tell you a funny story real quick, talking about the vision and not the plan. My brother, my oldest brother, he's had some prophetic dreams before, different things in our lives, in our family's lives. And he texted me, and this was probably about halfway through this journey on my way back, and he told me, he said, hey, bro, he said, I can't remember what rodeo it was, where you were at or whatever, he said, but I had a very clear dream that you would be back sooner than anybody thought.
And I kind of chuckled because that was my mentality. That was my goal. But I also, I text him back, I said, hey, you didn't happen to have a dream the night before the ninth round of the NFR in 2021, did you? And he laughed. I said, because if you did, just don't tell me about it.
But, you know, so from that point, you know, I dove in deeper into my nutrition. You know, I think, like, we're talking about health, fitness, and discipline.
You know, I've always been pretty good on my nutrition and my walk, but usually around Christmas time, I kind of let things go a little bit, you know, kind of enjoy the holidays. But at this point, I was like, no, I want my body to get the right amount of nutrition. I want it to heal and to function to its best of its ability. Right now, like, I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to wait for the right time. The time is now. And I think that's another thing that we all need to do. The time is now. Not tomorrow, not the next day, not the New Year's resolution, but the time is now. So that was my mindset, and my motives was to attack it right away.
And then from that point, we had a little bit of a U turn. About a month into it, I was at the point where I was in a walking boot and I was getting to do range of motion in my ankle, knee, and hip. And when I took my leg out of my boot at the one point, I noticed there was movement in my leg. And I didn't. I'm not a doctor, by no means, but I didn't think that was part of. Part of the process at this situation and at this point. And so I reached out to my doctors and, you know, they kind of gave me some options and whatnot. So we had an earlier doctor's appointment than what was scheduled. And long story short, there ended up having to have another surgery, completely redone the surgery again. They went in there and removed that hardware, put new hardware in. So that was a pretty big heartache. You know, I'm not gonna lie. I was pretty down and Out.
It took me a little bit to get over that. And we hit the ground running kind of, in a sense, no pun intended. But as I started getting back into, okay, now we're getting back into the boot. Now we're, you know, I still continue to try to hold on to. I know God's got a plan through this. I know that this is more than just about me and me getting healthy. God's going to show things to me and hopefully to other people through this. And, you know, but it got me thinking, you know, I was. I was putting so much thought into my nutrition for my physical needs from when this happened, that as soon as this turning point, this U turn come to me, I realized that I needed to not only put just as much, if not more into my mental thinking and my mindset, because if we don't have a sound mind, then it doesn't matter how fit or in shape we are in, you know, second Timothy 1:7, it talks about, he didn't give us a spirit of fear, but a power of love and a sound mind. And so I knew I needed to callous my mind. I needed to control my thoughts and what I was allowing in it. So instantly I dove in deeper into my word. I dove in deeper into testimonial books, overcoming books, people that have had challenges at adversities that they've overcome. And I just wanted to kind of basically submerge my thoughts in my mind with the battles that they went through, but the battles that they overcome. And then you started having that warrior mindset of wanting to turn this into something good and not worry about where you're at, where you're going, but you're focused on that you're gonna get there. And so through this point, I felt like God was giving me some words. And some of those words, there's four of them. But faith, mindset, evidence and love. And obviously faith in Hebrews it tells us now, faith is a substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.
Mindset is a habitual or characteristic mental attitude that determines how you will interpret or respond to situations. Evidence the velve the availability body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or a proposition is true or void or valid. And love is an intense feeling of deep affection. So those words were something that I kind of chewed on each and every day. And the big one out of that was evidence. Because I think without evidence, it's hard to provide or prove any of them other ones. Is there evidence in my faith? Is there evidence in my Mindset, there's evidence in my love. Is there evidence in this process that shows that I'm going to have discipline? And discipline to me is doing what needs to be done regardless of your circumstances.
And so each and every day I focused on these and to try to get better, to try to get stronger, and focusing more on the presence than the endpoint, than the prize. And through these types of seasons, I think we truly find out a lot more about ourselves and who we are, what we're going through and what we truly believe. You know, what good is faith is if it's never tested. And I think we've all been gut checked there before. It's pretty easy when you're comfy and things are going right and you can sit there and say, yeah, I believe in God, I trust in God, but it's kind of when you get thrown in the fiery furnace, if you can still have that mentality and say, even if, you know, it's not just about me, but even if I don't care, but even if.
And so finding out more about yourself and finding the joy in it, I think that's where I think I truly become more of a fan of the process than the prize. Because I think it's the process where you find out if you're worthy of the prize and who is worthy of being there with you for the prize. And we were talking about it earlier about everybody wants to have the highlights in the sports center and the big moments in that, but they don't want to take in consideration what it takes to get there. The hardships, the late nights, early morning, the hours, the blood, sweat and tears. And through this journey, you know, it was, obviously, we're out of COVID now, but all the rodeos and everything are back on Cowboy Channel. And I'm getting to watch all my boys do their job. And I was excited for them.
But it was hard. It was challenging being there and having to kind of put your best foot forward each and every day. But again, I was clinging to my faith. Is there evidence in my faith? Is there evidence in my work? Is there evidence showing that I am doing everything I can to get back? Is there evidence in my health? Is there evidence in my discipline? Is there evidence in my action?
And that's where I truly become more of a fan of the process than the prize. And I think that's what God wants from us, is to wake up each and every day and put our best foot forward. And the more we do that, I think we get more focused in the presence. And I think that's when we have a better chance of seeing what God has for us in that moment or is trying to show us through that season.
And I kept telling myself as I was going through this journey that, you know, if this could change just one person's life, change the trajectory of just one person's life, and it was all worth it, that I do it, that I do it again. And, you know, through this, God showed up. He brought people into my life that never would have happened if this didn't happen. And I feel that we've all went through some challenges and hardships, different ways in life, but for me to have that type of perspective and focus on that, God does have a plan that, you know, this is just part of the story, you know, like in James 1 and 2, you know, find the joy in the hardships because the testing of your faith will produce endurance. And for me, I want to be stronger. I want to be tested. I want to be able to be put to the fiery flame and be able to overcome. So. So find the joy in those moments in life. If you're. If you're feel like you're being held to the flame or you're being tested, put a smile on your face because you're getting that much closer to something that God's want that's calling you, where he's calling you to be.
With that being said, kind of wrap that part up is, you know, I was able to walk back to the Thomas and Mack center that following year and that feeling just.
It was very overwhelming. It was very humbling, it was very emotional.
And it was a moment that I'll never forget. But it's not due to the fact that I made it to this rodeo again. It was due to the fact to see what God has done through my life and others lives through this situation. And that knowing that he can and can do all things to provide for you and to walk it out with you. So my message today, it doesn't matter where you're at, what you're going through, God has you there at this time, at this place, this moment, for this reason. And when the enemy attacks, trust and know that God has a plan. And just like he told his disciples to get into the boat and go to the other side. You know, he doesn't say that the waters won't be rough, but he said, get in and we'll go to the other side. And I truly believe that God has that for each and every person in here. Get in the boat and trust that God will get you to the other side, find the joy in the rough seas. And that's kind of my bit of my story. And I hope that uplifted you and inspired you guys a little bit today. And thank you all for having me. And let us pray.
Father God, we just come to you today and we just thank and praise you for just allowing us to gather and fellowship in your name. And I thank you for each and every individual here, Father God, that if anybody's going through anything or challenged with anything, Father God, I just pray that you touch them, let them know that they're loved, highly favored Lord, and know that they're not walking it alone, that you'll walk at every step with them. And again, I thank you for Brother Bill. I thank you for this church. I thank you for his ministry. I just pray blessings on him and all that are who involved just to keep inspiring him, letting him be a light and a witness for this world.
And we just thank you for sending your son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. We thank you for the opportunity that you've given us to be here for the roadie. I just pray blessings for the whole community, all the people that are involved. And we just thank you for giving us life. And thank you for the hardships, the good days, the bad days, the peaks and the valleys, Lord. And we just give you all the honor, praise and glory. In Jesus mighty name we pray. Amen.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you have any questions or prayer requests, please contact us by visiting metchurch.com so that we can follow up with you this week. Week. We look forward to seeing you next week.
