For two days a phrase has been on repeat in my mind:

“It’s hard for you to kick against the pricks.”

Finally, I remembered it in song form, leading me to listen to Johnny Cash’s familiar “When the Man Comes Around” with fresh awareness.

So, what does it mean, this phrase, “kick against the pricks”? An investigation yielded this explanation from “Got Questions Ministry”:

“It is hard for you to kick against the pricks” was a Greek proverb, but it was also familiar to the Jews and anyone who made a living in agriculture. An ox goad was a stick with a pointed piece of iron on its tip used to prod the oxen when plowing. The farmer would prick the animal to steer it in the right direction. Sometimes the animal would rebel by kicking out at the prick, and this would result in the prick being driven even…