Cody Custer.

God gets used like a four-leaf clover the world over. But bull riders top the list, according to Cody Custer.

As a founding member of the Professional Bull Riders Association--20 bull riders who each invested $1,000 10 years ago to break from rodeo and create the tour that grossed $25 million in 2002--the 1992 world bull-riding champion said the sport's got tremendous God-consciousness.

Given the sport's life-and-death reality, Custer said practically anyone wearing chaps will show up to pray before the lights dim, the fireworks explode, and the emcees call it show time. After all, some bulls have come by monikers like "Widowmaker" and "Tombstone" ... honestly!

Yet Custer, 37, said getting transformational spiritual growth to take root in a sport riddled with bravado and beer has at times been more challenging than sticking with a bucking one-ton bull for eight seconds.

"I remember when I was a Lone Ranger," he said. "That's why I think my heart is in discipleship, because I was just turned out on my own after I accepted Christ."

To support those hungry to know more about God, he organized the Pro Bull Riding Outreach, a group that gathers once during a typical two-day event to pray, study the Bible, and fellowship--be it in the morning at the hotel or at night, after the scoreboard clears.

"The biggest thing I can say is that God's grace is bigger than us," he explained. "I'm kind of like Paul. I'm the chief of sinners. I've walked both sides of the line, and I'm amazed that He's using me."

That availability to God, Custer said, might help explain his unusually long and successful career. The five-foot-eight-inch, 145-pound cowboy's career stretches nearly 20 years and has generated more than $550,000 in PBR earnings--a sum that does not include related sponsorship and speaking engagement fees. He's also won another $850,000 in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association.

He said the joy of "speaking into the lives of others" and seeing those cowboys eventually be baptized and fruitful for Christ is its own reward. But remaining in this ministry niche, not to mention earning a living, requires that he stay on top of his game.

Besides working out, Custer said he finds the bull he drew before the two meet in the spotlight, to prepare for what always carries the potential of being his last ride.

"I don't get on a bull without praying and laying hands on him," Custer explained. That doesn't mean the veteran has walked away from every ride unscathed. He suffered injuries serious enough to require surgery during every season between 1993 and 1997.

"You can get hurt all different ways riding bulls," Custer said. Yet he keeps stepping aboard--as a gutsy athlete and a trusting Christian. And at the end of the day he returns to his wife, Stacey, and their three young children in Wickenburg, Arizona.

Since their 1990 wedding Custer has seriously prayed over a career change just once, when an early-season injury forced him to find work in construction while he healed.

"Me and my wife both, we were just praying for direction," he remembered from the 1997 trial. "I think you've got to be willing to lay down what you have for God. That year I learned to serve God wherever I'm at, and I think He's blessed us."

Pam Mellskog writes on health topics from Lafayette, Colorado.