Jonathots Daily Blog
(1961)
Three hundred and sixty five days.
That’s a year, right? I mean, I know it’s a year, but sometimes you look at a number you’re totally acquainted with and it looks weird to you.
But anyway, it was one year ago that a friend of mine called me on the phone, distraught, disappointed, disgusted and feeling generally … dissed.
He had faithfully worked a job for three years, trying to improve the quality of his performance and expand as an individual, only to be struck down in an ego battle with a new employee who decided that my friend was in the way and needed to be disposed of quickly.
He was fired from his position.
He was hurt. He had never experienced such humiliation.
It is difficult, at that point, for anyone to believe that anything good will come out of the situation. Foolishness, self-righteousness and revenge seem to have great power when we’ve been laid waste by the selfishness of others.
It’s because we have all been taught a lesson or two about “might making right.” We all think the Marines should sweep in and punish the evil-doers. We succumb to the notion that if God really loved us, He would destroy our enemies.
So I was pleasantly surprised when my friend received my counsel. My advice was simple:
“Stupid that pretends to be smart always eventually gets exposed as stupid and then–ends up smarting.”
For instance, we see Haman in the Old Testament, plotting against Esther, to murder the competition by building a gallows where he hoped she would be hung for being a traitor. But move ahead a few months. Truth comes out, lies are exposed, plots are revealed … and Hamen is hanging from his own gallows.
Meanwhile, back to my friend: one year to the day after he was demoralized by the foolish avenger, he not only has grown, prospered and enricheded his sitruation, but the gentleman who decided to mark him for destruction–he, himself, is now gone to parts unknown.
The good news of the gospel WORKS.
Jesus never told us that wisdom is a fully grown plant. It is always a seed. It demands that we place it in the ground provided for us and then have a bit of patience to see goodness come to fruition.
The only other alternative is to indulge yourself in a bloody hand-to-hand combat with other human beings until you are eventually vanquished by someone stronger.
When my friend called yesterday, to tell me of the fate of his foe, I was relieved. I was not comforted because someone suffered the slings and arrows of his own device, but rather, I felt a sense of great wonder–that the gospel of Jesus, which is normally eyeballed as a philosophy of the weak and poor–had once again proven that it triumphs over the rich and the haughty.
It still works, my friends. Normally, it demands that you swallow a lump of pride and digest it out of your system in order to give God a chance to prove the point … and bless you.
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