I didn’t know that
Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord.
Every once in a while the path of our presidential history takes the rough and tumble gravel road. Somehow the trees clear and the path opens to a vision of an unseen pathway. Out steps a creature whose unpolished boots are well worn and his hands are calloused. There is dirt under his fingernails and his life is full of trials.
So it was with him. By fifteen years old he had mastered the primitive farming skills his family so depended on. The steps into politics were slow and without any formal training or preparation. He was determined to rise above the poverty he was born into.
With little education, he was smart enough to know that he possessed a restricted intelligence. His sentences were filled with a limited vocabulary, but he was determined to change that. He purchased a dictionary and with great determination he set a goal of learning every word in it.
I worked many years as a plumber. I went to plumbing school and eventually owned my own plumbing company. Plumbing was my fall back career if the college thing didn’t work out. Although I was a pretty good plumber I never really developed a great love for doing it.
The type of plumbing work I did was new home construction work. I would often come home covered in dirt, oil, glue, or whatever I happened to be working with that day. One of the biggest problems I had with plumbing, though, was I had a lot of “friends” that wouldn’t even talk to me unless they had a plumbing problem. I rarely ever charged them anything more than what the materials cost me. Despite the smiles, it really hurt that they made me feel like a second class citizen.
When you really care about something it really hurts when people question your motives or treat you as inferior. What do you do when this happens? I guess the easiest thing to do is to change and fit into your surroundings. But if you really care, giving in means you become a traitor to the reason you cared in the first place.
He loved his people and the evil they continue to do broke his heart. He had one word for them: repent. But repenting meant the people had to change. That was not something the people were open to. They had a better idea: why didn’t he change? Now he faced the dilemma of what should he do? He knew that God was really upset with them. He refused to change into them. They turned on him. I’m not sure what hurt him more, them refusing to change and repent or them turning on him.
Jeremiah is considered one of the great prophets of the Old Testament. He was telling Judah exactly what they needed to hear. God was upset with them and He was going to send Babylon to overrun them and take them into captivity if they didn’t repent. The people got so upset with Jeremiah that they threw him into a cistern (the King James version of the Bible said they lowered him into a “dungeon”) and left him there to die. An Ethiopian eunuch went to the king to plead for Jeremiah’s life and the king sent men to rescue him. Babylon eventually captured Judah just as Jeremiah had predicted.
Millard Fillmore, our thirteenth President, was once offered an honorary doctorate of law by the Earl of Derby, chancellor of Oxford University. Growing up out of poverty I’m sure this could have been quite the honor for a person who once struggled with words. Fillmore’s response was: “I have not the advantage of a classical education, and no man should, in my judgment, accept a degree he cannot read.” I guess being something he wasn’t was not an option for Millard Fillmore.
Although my pipe wrench now sits in my basement covered with rust, and I now sell plumbing supplies instead of installing them, some of my best friends are plumbers. It simply amazes me when I tell them I use to be a plumber and they are completely surprised. I guess I just naturally fit in because they accept me for who I am and not for what I can do.
