Phil Robertson, US, Inventor

June 14. Phil Robertson. Phil grew up in a log cabin with no electricity or phone or toilet or bathtub, and he had four brothers and two sisters. And he grew up to be a reality TV star.

Phil says he came up in the 1950s, but it was more like the 1850s, and his family mostly lived off the land.

Must have been some good land because Phil went on to be all-state in football, baseball, and track, and a football scholarship took him on to university. But when the pros tried to recruit him, Phil turned them down because it would interfere with his hunting. For him, football was merely the vehicle to get his education.

And he did. Phil earned a bachelor’s degree in physical education and a master’s degree in education and supported his family as a teacher—until he hit a rough patch. That’s where today’s story comes in. By the way, on this date in 1991, Phil patented the duck call.

Blessing your enemies is hard, but it leads to God-given joy.

God used duck calls to change Phil’s fortune; God used His Word to change Phil’s life. If you have ever seen the reality show on A&E called , you have probably seen Phil, the wise patriarch of the clan. With his long brown hair and his longer not-so-brown beard, he looks like a penniless vagabond. But the duck call he invented made him and his family millionaires.

Phil grew up in poverty and rebellion. He married Kay when he was nineteen, but marriage did not bring maturity. He drank too much, experimented with drugs, and had multiple affairs. When Kay told him she was going to leave him, Phil decided to straighten up and follow Jesus.

Phil found a man who had once tried to introduce him to Jesus. (But Phil had thrown him out of his house.) This time, he asked the man to try again. Phil became a Christian and learned his first lesson: “Love God, love man, and try to be good. I decided I would try that. I had never tried before.”

Now Phil was an Arkansas fisherman and a hunter. That was his livelihood and his passion. And he explained how life was: “See, you got your Rednecks and your River Rats.” River Rats were poor men who broke the law instead of getting an honest job, and they bothered Phil. River Rats, unlike Rednecks, were good thieves and often stole Phil’s fish.

But Phil had studied Romans 12.

“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.…Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.… If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. …Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:14, 17–18, 20–21 NIV).

Phil thought about the River Rats, the banes of his existence. That day, when he went down to the lake where he had laid a net, he heard voices. So he hid in the bushes.

It was the River Rats, and they were stealing his fish. Again.

“They’re stealing my fish, Lord? You want me to bless them?”

Phil thought of Romans 12. “Do not return evil for evil.”

Phil had caught these River Rats with his fish before and usually roared at them and showed his shotgun and threatened their lives. Like rats, they ran away. But this time Phil wanted to obey God and His Word.

“I wanted to see if this would work, but it definitely made no earthly sense for sure.” Phil approached the Rats and took his gun with him. “I was going to be good to them, but I brought my gun in case they weren’t good to me.”

Phil approached the River Rats as they were lifting Phil’s net. He asked them what they were doing with his net.

They pretended ignorance and said, “Oh, is that what this is?” “Here’s what I am going to do,” Phil said. “I’m going to lift that net, and whatever fish is there I am going to give to you.”

The River Rats were shocked, but not too shocked to take the fish. They left Phil, but they kept looking back at him with pleased confusion. From that day on, they didn’t try to steal anything from the Robertsons.

“I figured that this meant God was right all along.” Phil smiled.

Who can you bless today even if they don’t deserve it? Do something for them in secret, and see what God will do. Blessing your enemies is hard, but it leads to God-given joy.

Robertson, Phil. Happy, Happy, Happy: My Life and Legacy as a . New York: Howard Books, 2015. Robertson, Phil. “Fish Story.” Accessed May 7, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTzN3JX_xvA.

Do You Want to Know More About This Man?

When ESPN interviewed Phil, he said, “One time a bunch of geese came over and I was over there with the coach and talking about techniques or whatever, a big skull session on the practice field. I heard these geese. Remember we were practicing in the fall of the year — and the grand passage as we call it — the ducks and geese were coming from Canada. I heard these blues and snow geese coming over and I sort of fell into a trance. Of course I had my headgear next to my chest and I’m looking toward the sky and finally one of them coaches looked around, and he started cursing at me, ‘What are you doing son? Get over here! What are you looking up at?’

“I said, ‘A bunch of them geese, Coach. Boy they pretty, ain’t they?’

“He said, ‘Get your butt over here.’”

Terry Bradshaw said, “The quarterback playing ahead of me, Phil, loved hunting more than he loved football. He’d come to practice directly from the woods, squirrel tails hanging out of his pockets, duck feathers on his clothes. Clearly he was a fine shot, so no one complained too much.”