Sheepdog

The Word

Gumption.

It is one of those old words that sounds like it should be sitting on a shelf beside a pair of worn work gloves.

It means courage, confidence, initiative, and resourcefulness—the willingness to act when a situation requires more than observation.

I like the word because it has movement inside it.

Gumption does not only recognize a problem. It gets off the couch. It leaves the safe position. It speaks when silence would be easier. It moves toward the thing everyone else is backing away from.

That sounds a lot like Feeling Dangerous.

But courage has a shadow.

The same person who is willing to move toward danger can begin believing every danger requires him. The desire to protect can become a need to control. Service can become identity. Gumption can quietly mutate into a savior complex.

From the outside, the two can look almost identical.

Both move fast.

Both take responsibility.

Both enter hard situations.

Both may even help someone.

The difference is hidden in the motive and revealed by the fruit.

One acts for others.

The other needs the action for self.

One obeys God.

The other replaces Him.

One gives glory away.

The other survives on being indispensable.

I have lived close enough to both to know how easily the line can disappear.

February 2023

In February 2023, I was flying home after attending a men’s conference at a church in Ohio.

Victor Marx was one of the keynote speakers. Today, he is a ministry founder, high-risk humanitarian, and the 2026 Republican nominee for governor of Colorado. At the time, I knew him primarily through his work with people affected by trauma, abuse, trafficking, and conflict.

I do not remember the outline of his speech. I do remember his Belgian Malinois at his side... a small protective detail... and firepower... all at a church seminar.

That is strange, considering what happened next.

I cannot give you the three points, the supporting stories, or the final altar call. What stayed with me was a metaphor about three kinds of people: sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs.

The sheep were ordinary people who wanted to live peacefully.

The wolves were predators willing to harm the vulnerable.

The sheepdogs were the protectors—the rare people willing and able to stand between the wolf and the flock.

That framework is not a passage of Scripture.

It is a modern metaphor, and like every metaphor, it has limits. Human beings are more complicated than three permanent categories.

A person is not stripped of dignity because he commits evil.

A protector is not automatically righteous because he knows how to fight.

Peaceful people are not weak merely because they do not carry violence in their bodies.

But in that room, the metaphor reached something already living in me.

There have been seasons when I acted like the wolf. I have harmed people. I have taken more than I should have taken. I have let appetite, pride, addiction, and ambition decide who absorbed the cost of my choices.

That glove never fit.

Since childhood, I have felt more at home in the position of the protector. I notice threats. I watch doors. I read people. I feel responsibility for the room. I do not naturally expect someone else to move first.

I left Ohio inspired to step up more often or as needed.

In my mind, I had renewed a vow.

I would stay on guard... not only for my family but for anyone around me who needed somebody willing to stand between innocence and harm.

I boarded the flight carrying that message in my chest.

I did not know I was about to take a test on it.

Dressed for Business, Built for War

At that time in my life, I traveled in a business-professional uniform: dress shoes, dark denim, dark shirt, suit coat.

I remember stepping off the plane and walking a little taller than normal.

I did not check a bag. I rarely checked luggage unless Danielle was traveling with me. It has always shocked me how the same three- or four-day trip can require one small carry-on when I travel alone and multiple checked bags when my wife joins me.

But that trip had been mine.

My growth.

My awakening.

My message about being the man who moves toward danger.

I reached the parking lot and climbed into a vehicle that matched the way I felt.

At the time, I was midway through building a Bronco Raptor. Calling it bad was probably an understatement. Almost everything had been painted black. It was murdered out—roof racks, lights, upgraded performance, and nearly every modification I could justify installing.

It did not look subtle.

Neither did I.

I left the airport late at night and headed toward the interstate.

Traffic was light.

Normally, it would have been a fast, uneventful drive home.

That night was neither.

The White Van

I was merging onto the interstate at more than ninety miles per hour.

That detail matters.

It would be easy to write myself into this story as the responsible protector from the first sentence. I was not. I was already driving fast. I was already carrying the energy of the conference, the vehicle, the empty road, and my own confidence.

Then a white Sprinter-style van nearly drove me off the road.

It came across my path so violently that I had to correct onto the shoulder to avoid a collision.

I screamed words that did not sound anything like the men’s conference I had just left.

The van shot past me.

Then I saw the police car behind it with its emergency lights flashing.

This was not merely an aggressive driver.

I had merged into a high-speed police pursuit.

My switch flipped.

I was heated.

The driver had nearly destroyed my vehicle and possibly my life. He was endangering an officer and everyone else on the interstate. Seconds earlier, I had been carrying a message about standing against wolves.

Now one had nearly put me into the wall.

I put the pedal down and followed the chase.

Chasing Justice or Chasing Adrenaline?

At the time, I told myself I wanted to see the man brought to justice.

That was true.

It was not the whole truth.

I was also furious.

I was charged up.

I had just spent a weekend being reminded that protectors move when other people freeze, and now the entire interstate had turned into a live demonstration.

The van and the police car pulled away. My Raptor was fast, but they were moving faster than I could sustain. After several minutes, I was following distant taillights.

I made a deal with myself.

My exit was approaching. If I did not catch them before then, I would leave the interstate and go home.

That was the boundary I gave myself after I had already crossed the larger one.

Looking back, I can see how quickly conviction and adrenaline became tangled.

Gumption had told me not to look away.

Anger told me I needed to join the pursuit.

The protector wanted the public safe.

The ego wanted to see how the story ended.

That is what makes motive difficult. We prefer clean explanations, but the heart can carry love, rage, courage, pride, responsibility, and recklessness in the same body at the same speed.

The Crash

The pursuit ended beneath the underpass immediately before my exit.

The police car and the van collided.

The van became a pinball.

It smashed into vehicles around it before coming to rest in the ditch on the right side of the interstate. The police car ended wrecked against the center median. Civilian cars spun around. Headlights that had been traveling with traffic were suddenly facing it.

The road became chaos.

I was still approaching fast.

I stepped hard on the brakes as the scene grew larger in front of me. A mile of distant lights became metal, glass, wrecked cars, injured people, and drivers trying to understand which direction danger was coming from.

Then I saw someone climb out of the van.

He had a large bag.

He ran up the embankment toward an eight-foot chain-link fence.

The driver was fleeing.

He had nearly hit me. He had endangered everyone on the road. The pursuit had ended with an officer and multiple civilians in wrecked vehicles, and now he was trying to disappear over a fence.

I stopped debating.

I drove the Bronco directly into the ditch.

The Fence

For years, I held an Illinois concealed-carry license. That night, I had a concealed .45 in the vehicle.

I chambered a round, got out, and moved toward the fence.

The driver was climbing, but he was struggling under his own weight.

I did not fire.

The old strong-safety instincts took over. I hit him between the shoulders and drove him off the fence. I grabbed him, put him on the ground, pinned him with my knee between his shoulders, and held the firearm against the back of his head.

It happened extremely fast.

Even now, part of me can look back and be impressed by how smoothly my body executed what my mind had decided.

That part of the story is true.

So is the next part.

He began moving beneath me as though he were reaching for something. He had already thrown the bag over the fence. I did not know what was in the bag, what was in his pockets, whether he was armed, or what he was willing to do.

I leaned toward his head and said:

“I am going home no matter what. You can decide whether you go to jail or heaven.”

At the time, I heard the voice of a protector setting a clear boundary.

Looking back, I can hear something else too.

Anger.

Power.

The confidence of a man who had decided he could arrange a one-on-one judgment between another person and God.

I may have been holding a dangerous man, but I realized I was one also.

The Man in the Prius

After a few minutes, another civilian ran toward us.

He had stopped his Prius near the wreck. He wore sweatpants and baggy clothes. He was soft-spoken and already on the phone with dispatch.

My first assessment was not generous.

I judged him before he reached me.

I had just left a conference carrying a mental picture of the sheepdog. In that picture, backup looked prepared, aggressive, physically capable, and ready to join a fight.

This man did not look like my version of backup.

I remember thinking that if the suspect became violent, the Prius driver was not the person I wanted beside me.

I was wrong.

He did not need to become another source of force.

He became the calm voice.

He talked to dispatch. He communicated what was happening. He told them there was an armed civilian holding the suspect. He kept information moving while I kept the man on the ground. He tried to talk me down, and when I told him I was steady and would not move until law enforcement arrived, he stayed.

The wreck had scattered the available officers across multiple urgent needs. They stopped to help drivers and assess vehicles before reaching us. The wait felt much longer than it probably was.

The man in the Prius remained on the phone.

I thought backup would look like another man willing to fight.

God sent me a man willing to keep the fighter connected to reason.

His softness was not uselessness.

His restraint was not cowardice.

His communication may have protected me as much as my force restrained the man beneath me.

That night did not contain one protector.

It contained different kinds.

“Don’t Shoot the Guy with the Gun”

Dispatch eventually told the Prius driver that sheriff’s deputies were approaching.

I gave him an unusual but necessary message to relay:

“Tell them not to shoot the guy with the gun.”

From law enforcement’s perspective, they were arriving at a mass-collision scene where one man was on the ground and another man in business clothes had a firearm pressed against his head.

They did not know which one of us had been driving the van.

They did not know whether I was helping, attacking, or becoming a second threat.

The deputies arrived with multiple weapons trained on me.

That image now stays with me as much as the tackle.

My intentions did not make me visually distinguishable from danger.

Good motives do not prevent catastrophic misunderstandings.

I stood calmly. I removed the magazine, cleared the chamber, moved several steps toward the officers, and placed the weapon at my feet as directed.

They took control of the scene and placed the driver in custody.

I walked toward a sheriff’s SUV thinking:

Did that really just happen?

Hours earlier, I had listened to a message about sheepdogs.

Now I had chased a police pursuit, driven a black Bronco into a ditch, tackled a fleeing driver against a fence, held him at gunpoint, and nearly become the armed figure deputies encountered before they understood the scene.

It felt like a test.

At the time, I believed I had passed with flying colors.

The Call Home

I called Danielle.

“Hey, there has been an incident. I am safe, but I will not be home for another hour.”

That was probably not the call my wife wanted in the middle of the night.

There is a particular selfishness that can hide inside the protector identity. The protector sees the person in immediate danger and can become blind to the people at home who also depend on him returning alive.

I had acted as though my willingness to die settled the question.

It did not.

My life was not mine alone to wager.

Danielle had a husband on that interstate. Our children had a father. My courage affected people who never consented to the risk I accepted on their behalf.

That does not mean love never risks itself.

Jesus said there is no greater love than laying down one’s life for friends.

But sacrifice and impulsiveness are not synonyms.

The willingness to die can be holy.

The need to prove you are willing to die can be pride.

I completed a detailed police report. I shook hands with officers. One thanked me, and at the time that acknowledgment felt like enough.

I never went to court.

I never saw the story in a headline.

I do not know what ultimately happened to the driver, what was in the bag, what charges were filed, or how the injured people recovered.

All that remained with me was a crazy story about going full send and having complete gumption when the situation demanded action.

For years, that was the lesson.

It was not the whole lesson.

I Protected People, But I Added Risk

Here is the version of the story my ego would prefer:

A courageous man heard a message about protecting the innocent. Hours later, evil appeared. He moved when others froze, captured the wolf, and handed him to justice.

There is truth in that version.

The driver was fleeing after a dangerous pursuit and a multi-vehicle wreck. Stopping him may have prevented further harm. I did act decisively. I did not fire. I maintained control until law enforcement arrived. Officers thanked me.

But a testimony does not become more powerful when I remove every fact that complicates the hero.

I was driving too fast before the van appeared.

I chose to pursue an active police chase even though law enforcement was already present.

I allowed anger and adrenaline to influence my decisions.

I entered a chaotic scene with a firearm, where officers could easily have mistaken me for the suspect.

I threatened a man’s life before knowing whether he was armed or what he was reaching toward.

I placed my wife and children at risk of losing me.

I protected people that night.

I also added risk to an already dangerous situation.

Both are true.

This is what it means to report from the dangerous middle instead of polishing myself into the hero.

God was not glorified because I was the baddest man in the ditch.

God is glorified when I become honest enough to let Him separate courage from pride inside me.

Gumption and the Savior Complex

Biblical gumption is not a phrase found in Scripture.

The idea is there.

Proverbs tells us to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves and defend the rights of the poor and needy. Psalm 82 commands justice for the weak and fatherless. Proverbs 24 warns against standing by while people are being carried toward destruction.

Faith does not always remain seated.

Love intervenes.

Love speaks.

Love protects.

Love risks comfort, reputation, money, time, and sometimes physical safety for the good of another person.

But Scripture places another truth beside that courage.

Human anger does not produce God’s righteousness.

Desire without knowledge is not good, and hurried feet can miss the way.

Jesus explicitly rejected the kind of greatness that rules over other people. He described His own authority through service and sacrifice.

That is the line between gumption and a savior complex.

Gumption says, “God, use me.”

The savior complex says, “God, watch me.”

Gumption can move or remain still, depending on obedience.

The savior complex always needs a scene.

Gumption serves the actual need.

The savior complex serves the rescuer’s identity.

Gumption accepts help.

The savior complex resents not being the only hero.

Gumption knows the outcome belongs to God.

The savior complex believes everything will collapse if it releases control.

Gumption gives glory.

The savior complex feeds on gratitude, dependence, recognition, and being needed.

The hardest part is that I can begin with gumption and cross into the savior complex without changing locations.

The action can remain the same while the heart changes underneath it.

The Test I Am Still Taking

Did I pass the test that night?

I acted.

I stopped a fleeing driver.

I did not look away from danger.

I also chased adrenaline, added risk, misjudged the man who helped me, and placed myself in a position where one misunderstanding could have ended my life.

So my answer is no longer “with flying colors.”

My answer is that the test revealed me.

It revealed courage.

It revealed skill.

It revealed protectiveness.

It revealed anger.

It revealed pride.

It revealed my willingness to sacrifice.

It revealed how easily that willingness could become a need to prove myself.

God used the night not only to show me that I could move toward danger.

He used it to show me that courage also needs discipleship.

A loaded weapon needs control.

A strong body needs restraint.

A fast mind needs wisdom.

A protector needs accountability.

Gumption needs surrender.

The Sheepdog Still Needs a Shepherd

The sheepdog metaphor made me want to protect the flock.

But a sheepdog is not the shepherd.

That may be the most important distinction in the entire story.

The sheepdog serves under authority.

It does not own the flock.

It does not choose every battlefield.

It does not decide that its aggression is automatically righteous because it is aimed at someone labeled a wolf.

It listens for the Shepherd.

Jesus is the Savior.

I am not.

Jesus is the Judge.

I am not.

Jesus knows every heart, every fact, every danger, and every outcome.

I do not.

My assignment is not to eliminate the part of me that moves toward people in danger. God can use that part. He has used it.

My assignment is to surrender it.

The goal is not less courage.

It is cleaner courage.

Courage without the need for applause.

Strength without the need to dominate.

Initiative without the assumption that I am the only answer.

Protection that values every person—including the quiet man with the phone.

Action that remains under God’s authority from the first movement to the final release.

What Gumption Looks Like Today

Most people reading this will not encounter a police pursuit tonight.

You may never drive into a ditch, tackle a fleeing driver, or hear deputies ordering you to put down a firearm.

That is not the point.

The vulnerable people in Proverbs 31 are still around us.

Someone in your workplace is being spoken over.

Someone in your family cannot carry another burden alone.

Someone is being bullied, exploited, ignored, or quietly led toward destruction.

Someone needs a witness.

Someone needs a phone call.

Someone needs a boundary.

Someone needs a calm voice connected to the right help.

Gumption may look less like a tackle and more like telling the truth in a room that rewards silence.

It may look like documenting what happened.

It may look like reporting abuse.

It may look like paying for safety, offering transportation, making an introduction, staying on the phone, or refusing to laugh at the joke that dehumanizes someone who is not present.

Do not wait to feel fearless.

But do not mistake adrenaline for instruction either.

Ask three questions:

Who am I protecting?

Whose voice is directing me?

Will this action serve the vulnerable—or serve my need to be the hero?

Then do the next faithful thing before fear leaves.

That is gumption.

Not being the savior.

Following Him.

Scripture for the Field

Primary — Proverbs 31:8–9

Scripture commands God’s people to speak for those without a voice, judge fairly, and defend people who are poor, needy, or vulnerable.

Counterweight — James 1:19–20

James calls believers to listen quickly, speak carefully, and become slow to anger because human anger does not produce God’s righteousness.

Psalm 82:3–4

God calls for justice for the weak, fatherless, afflicted, and destitute, including active rescue from wicked hands.

Prayer

Father,

Thank You for every person You have equipped to move toward danger, defend the vulnerable, and speak when silence would be easier. Make me brave through Your love rather than through anger, adrenaline, pride, or the need to be seen.

Purify the protector in me. Show me where courage has become identity and where service has become control. Teach me to recognize the difference between Your direction and my impulse. Give me wisdom before movement, restraint inside strength, and humility when another person carries the part of the assignment I cannot.

Help me recognize the quiet protectors—the people who call, communicate, document, pray, de-escalate, and keep others connected to help. Forgive me for judging courage by appearance.

Jesus, You are the Savior. I am not. You are the Judge. I am not. Let my gumption remain surrendered to You. Show me the next faithful thing, and give me courage to do it before fear leaves.

In Jesus’ name, amen.

Listen — “You Make Me Brave” by Bethel Music

The song centers courage in God’s love and call. Its repeated confession—“You make me brave”—keeps bravery from becoming self-worship. God draws His people beyond the shore, but the One who calls must remain the One who directs them in the waves.

Listen: “You Make Me Brave” — Bethel Music

A Necessary Note

This Field Note is a firsthand recollection and a spiritual reflection, not tactical, firearms, self-defense, or legal instruction. High-speed pursuits, crash scenes, weapons, and attempts to detain people create extreme risks for civilians, victims, first responders, and bystanders. The safest lawful response depends on the immediate facts, location, training, and instructions from emergency dispatch or law enforcement.

The story should not be read as permission to chase suspects, insert oneself into police activity, threaten deadly force, or label another person a “wolf.” The Illinois statutes cited in the internal notes define narrow legal standards; they do not establish that every decision described here was legally justified.