Don't Say I Didn't Warn You

Luke 13:31-35

It's really funny how portions of my memory get recalled by the smallest triggers. Let's take today's passage as an example. The very first verse is a warning to Jesus that something bad is going to happen. Jesus follows  up this warning with his version of "don't tell me what to do."

When I was in my mid-late twenties I was part of a group of managers at work that heard about someone we knew who was going to be talked to about, and possibly fired for, words and actions which some of his employees considered abusive. We knew he had anger issues and was one of those people who had to be right all the time. One of our group worked with him before they became managers and told us how he would sometimes yell at coworkers when they got things wrong.

In our meeting we told him he had to tone down his anger and learn to be a better listener and teacher in order for his store and career to be successful. His response was very similar to Jesus'; "You go tell whoever is coming after me that they should listen to me because I'm the only one who really knows what's going on."

Unfortunately, our coworker wasn't Jesus so things didn't turn out well for him. Fortunately Jesus is Jesus and, even though things didn't turn out well for him, in the historical scheme of things we now see he was right. You know what, now that I think about it so was that manager. not more than 2 years after he left the company did it begin to fall apart and eventually it closed.

If only we had listened to the angry and abusive person who, even though he made sense, we all blamed for his own downfall. It would seem that everything he complained about was what caused the company to have problems. Which brings me to a point (I knew there was one in there somewhere); sometimes when we feel like our passion for something is not being respected we become frustrated and eventually angered. When that anger becomes abusive, however, is when we need to listen to the warnings around us.

Passion is a wonderful thing to have. The ability to do something positive with that passion is abundantly more wonderful. Don't let the fact that people don't understand your passion become a stumbling block, instead find ways to effectively communicate that passion with others so that they, too, may become passionate and together be able to accomplish something great.