At my weekly meeting for coffee with my dad, we were talking about freedom and bondage related to people in churches and families. In the course of our conversation I said, “I’ve learned one thing; You have to get to the place where you don’t care if they listen or not. Because if you care, it will always beat you down that they don’t listen.” There is real freedom in having wisdom and truth, or even love - and not feel that you have to force or persuade others to accept it.

Jesus said, “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces”  (Matthew 7:6).  We often hear people throw out the “pearls before swine” portion of this passage, but they don’t talk much about the “tearing you to pieces” part. This is the important part. This is the part that will protect your heart and soul from the merciless attack of people who are not worthy of truth, wisdom or love.

Dogs do not recognize what is sacred and pigs don’t value anything that has true worth. Jesus wasn’t talking about dogs and pigs. He was speaking of people who are too carnal to grasp the Holy and are too self indulgent to cherish things of great worth. And if you are so foolish as to offer a portion of holy wisdom or truth of tremendous value, those who have rejected the God given ability to see the worth of those things, may hate you and may make it their objective to hurt you.

This applies to sharing spiritual truth, giving wise counsel, teaching Holy principles and even offering love. I’m not saying we shouldn’t care about the people. We can’t do that and still be godly. But we do need to stop caring that they don’t want to accept what is good, holy or wise. If they are open, then share. If you know they are not able to receive, don’t share, because they will toss aside your counsel and may attack you as well. To have the ones that you care most about tear you to pieces is the greatest pain you will ever know.

In the song, God Says Nothing Back, by the Wallflowers, Jacob Dylan says this, “To be in your heart I failed my own; God says nothing back but I told you so.” If we invest ourselves into people who we know do not value the sacred, do not cherish things of great worth and even disdain the love we have for them – and in the end they tear us to pieces . . . well, he did tell us that might happen. Be wise.

telemicus out

In my office, I have a poster that hangs on the wall. It reads, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Joshua 1:5). This is the promise of God to Joshua and claimed by most people who have ever walked with God. We trust that whatever life may bring our way, whatever the enemy throws and the Lord allows that God will not forsake us. I believe this to be true. This does not mean that life won’t drag us through hardship, that the enemy won’t attack us or that He won’t allow it all to come tumbling down on top, around and in us. However, it does mean that when the dark times come – He is there. He is not absent from our pain, but asks us to trust His Presence through it. 

As I mentioned in my last posting, I am reading a book called Ghost Rider (not related to the movie by the same name.) The author, Neil Peart, tells about a friend who is going through one of these lonely dark places in his life. In a letter to his friend, he affirms his love and promises to look after his family and that he should not worry about their needs. Then came the sentence that grabbed me.  He wrote, “Whatever you need, I’m here for you . . .  and even if I’m not here for you, I’m somewhere for you!” Man, I wish I had written that, but even more, I want to be that for my friends. I want to be so solid that they know that when I’m not with them in the flesh, I am somewhere for them.  

Our Father has a longing in His heart that is the same. He wants us to believe that he is “somewhere” for us. Someone said, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” I know there are times when we feel like he is absent. Today, if you are sitting in the darkness of your soul wondering why He isn’t there for you – you can be sure of this; He is somewhere for you.  telemicus out

Don’t we all think of ourselves as open-minded people? I am a person of very strong opinions. I come to those opinions with forethought and information, (usually). However, something has happened to me in recent weeks that have convinced me that I’m quite prejudiced in certain areas. (These illuminations have me concerned that there may be other creatures lurking under the stairway of my soul.)  For many years, I’ve believed that Stephen King is a man who is evil at his core and a creator of evil. All this, based on what I knew of his life, (which admittedly was not much,) and what I knew of his writing. I now have to look at myself differently because he is not all that I thought he was.  

I’ve been reading his book, On Writing and he is a man of deep devotion to his family and his craft. His writing is an expression, (like many of us who write,) of his life. He makes the comment in the book that he believes in God but has no use for organized religion. (I so get that!) I’m not saying that he is moral, saved, or holy. I’m simply saying that there is good where I pre-judged that there was only evil. I was wrong. One of my co-workers gave me a book called, Ghost Rider by Neil Peart. He is the drummer for the rock band Rush. I’ve been sure of their evil for a long time. Although I know nothing of their music really, they have pentagrams on their album artwork so that was enough for me to judge that whole scene as “of the enemy.” But as I’ve been reading his book about the healing of his soul following the loss of his daughter and his wife in the same year, I’ve come to face once again that my prejudice has robbed me of something. 

I’m never going to be a big fan of Rush, but what this man went through and the value of his journey on “the healing road” has touched me. My prejudice said that rock stars care about nothing except “sex, drugs and rock and roll.” But Peart is far more than the stereotype: a man of deep emotion, intelligence, knowledge of the world and people, a caring family man who has an amazing devotion to his friends. And while he clearly is not a believer, he is not an enemy of what is good in the world.  This article is not to sing the praises of these two that I judged wrongly. The trouble is that I often judge people based on what I think I know. In this, I am wrong. I hope you’re not like me, but if you catch yourself judging with your perceptions and half-@#$% knowledge, then let me encourage you to give things a closer look. Prejudice robs us of the good that is in others and the lessons we need to learn from them.  telemicus out

This week a good movie came out on video that I think everyone should see, (if they want to.) Stranger than Fiction, is an offbeat romantic comedy starring Will Farrell. The movie is about an author who is trying to complete a book where the main character, Harold Crick, an obsessive IRS agent, is also a real person. The author doesn’t know it, but as she writes the narrative, Harold can hear her. The author has always killed the hero at the end of her stories. The problem is that Harold knows what is coming. Eventually he is able to find out who the narrator is and meets her just after she has completed the story that ends in his death. She allows him to read the story. It is a masterpiece. He is convinced that it’s the right thing to do to allow her to “write him out of the story.” 

In the end, she has mixed feelings. For killing off a fictitious character is one thing . . . killing off a real person is quite another. But it is the greatest book of her career. In the end, she changes the story and its no longer a masterpiece – it’s just a good story. When a Professor asks her why she changed it, she says, “Well it seems that the kind of a person who would step in front of a bus to save someone else is the kind of person you want to keep around.” Some years ago a group called 4 Him had a song called, A Man You Would Write About. The song says that we should be the kind of people God would write about if he were writing the Bible today. My sister Jodi said one day that she always thought of me when she heard that song. This is praise that I clearly don’t deserve, (I know me better than she does,) but I was reminded of it thinking of Harold Crick. 

Harold Crick was noble in the end because he was always that way. When the need for action came, he responded. The world sees the heart of God in his children when they respond to whatever need may arise. I do hope that we are people he would write about. I want us to be characters he would keep in the story not because we are great, but because in our better moments, we look like our Father. telemicus out