The situation took an unexpected and perilous turn at 1 PM on Saturday. It was the very last hill before returning home to safety and boredom. I was on my own four-wheeler and everyone else was way ahead of me. I knew I probably shouldn’t try to go down the steep incline, but I’d survived all the other crazy over the last
36 hours, so I thought I would go for it.
Bad idea.
I was a newbie to the sport, so I had no idea how to navigate going down a super-steep hill. Long story short, the four-wheeler flipped and landed on my neck. Witnesses thought I was dead—or would be in a wheelchair.
That was 20 years ago. I still have pain in my neck every day. But we had a lot of good stories, bro as a result!
My wife and I enjoy exercising, but sometime after this near-death experience, I started experiencing stabbing pain in my chest and just under my shoulder blade when I run. I still have it to this day. Still, when I jog three days a week, it feels like I am having a heart attack for the first mile.
I decided to see a cardiologist. He gave me the ol’ treadmill test. Gave me monitors to take home. Eventually, they went so far as to schedule a heart cath. They found zilch. Everything was fine. But why did it feel like I was having a heart attack every time I ran?
Sometime later, I went to a pulmonologist. He gave me all these tests. Even prescribed inhalers. After two months, I threw them away. His diagnosis was exercise-induced asthma. I knew that wasn’t correct.
Next, I tried physical therapy. This was the best fit for the situation. Stretching consistently every day gives me some relief.
Here was my ah-ha moment: doctors and specialists often only see what they were trained to see. Unless they are highly intentional, they can only see what they were educated to look for. Cardiologists are trained to target heart issues, and pulmonologists focus on trying to snoop out lung issues. It can be hard to see anything that does not fit into the paradigm/craft that they were trained in and worked so diligently to perfect.
We can be SO FOCUSED, that we can actually become blind to other realities. Meditate on that.
Permit me to share some possibilities:
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We can become so focused on TRUTH (or truth-telling) that we miss the opportunity to provide generous doses of grace, kindness, and tact.
- We can focus on a few verses in the Bible and miss the context and, therefore, the whole point of the passage.
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We can so fiercely embrace a belief/conviction that was taught to us by someone we respect (teacher, parent, pastor, priest, mentor), that we do not invest the brain energy into examining a situation, a strongly held belief--- or a passage of Scripture-- for ourselves.
Wouldn’t you agree that that is lazy at best---and dangerous or irresponsible-- at some junctures?
Do you ever wonder what you have become blind to? Are we nose-blind to some teaching or “fact”? Will we have the courage to set aside our presumed interpretation of life, the news, a relationship, Scripture, an event at church, or the salacious office gossip?
Will you have the courage to look at your marriage and examine the possibility that you are, indeed, the problem? It costs nothing to introspect and have an honest conversation with yourself. We will always see what we are expecting to see.
Keep the door open-- so that you might benefit from a different angle. Let’s have the humility to learn from someone less educated than we are, younger than us, or even from a different theological bent.
There are a lot of intelligent, Jesus-lovin’ people out there - and they may not look like you or me or even live in our hemisphere---but their opposing view might have some merit. Maybe.
Let’s stay open. Open-minded. Open-handed.
For extra credit, check out all of the passages where Jesus says, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Apparently, just because we have physical ears, not everyone is as open to different views/ideas/facts.
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