Not Exactly
your
King James
Version
by Robert Hruzek
*****
© 2009 Middle Zone Publishing
Houston, Texas, USA
All rights reserved.
*****
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Within these pages you’ll find a baker’s dozen of truly memorable stories, specifically chosen to illustrate the truism that life itself remains among the greatest teachers of all time.
What’s more, each story not only demonstrates great, practical lessons learned from everyday life, but draws a connection from those lessons to fundamental principles found in the pages of the Bible: principles of faith, conviction, purpose, and especially, God’s love.
Told in the author’s easy-to-read, down-to-earth style, you’ll likely laugh, and you may cry – but you might just learn a thing or two!
*****
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Hruzek lives in Tomball, a very small town just north of the exciting metropolis of Houston, Texas, where he thoroughly enjoys being married to the love of his life, otherwise known as The Most Wonderful Wife in the Whole World.
Usually employed as an engineering project manager, it’s a job that lets him travel, live and work in quite a few places within the United States and around the world – some of ‘em great, and some of ‘em, well… not so much.
Interested in reading more stories? Robert writes prolifically on a wide variety of topics at his website, Middle Zone Musings. (By the way, he often encourages others to tell stories too.)
The Middle Zone is a comfortable place to drop by and have a cup of coffee, swap a few stories and share a few practical ideas for the real world. He doesn’t ask for much, just a bit of your brain now and then. Why not come by, put your feet up, take a load off and relax...
You can contact Robert at:
Middle Zone Musings (http://middlezonemusings.com)
Email: rhruzek@sbcglobal.net
Twitter: @RobertHruzek
*****
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. IT CAME TO PASS
2. REALITY CHECK
3. CONSIDER THE SOURCE
4. PICK UP WHERE YOU LEFT OFF
5. SQUISHED!
6. WHEN YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO
7. CONSIDER THE ANT
8. WHAT IS LOVE?
9. THE TROUBLE WITH TROUBLE
10. TURNING POINT
11. ODE TO THE FALLEN
12. WHAT I LEARNED FROM CHAOS
13. THE BOY WHO WOULD BE KING
*****
1
IT CAME TO PASS
Back when I was in school, the word “test” held an amazing and magical power: it could cause students to break out into a cold sweat and instantly turn the most confident into a quivering mass of gelatin. It exasperated me to no end why teachers always loved to surprise us poor, unsuspecting students. I mean, c’mon; what’s with that, anyway?
__________
I’ve always been a fan of the King James Version of the Bible. I know, I know; there’s a whole herd of “more accurate” translations out there. But I’ll tell ya; sometimes the KJV expresses God’s Word in a way that really makes the message sing, y’know? Back in the Middle Ages they really knew how to turn a phrase. (Not to mention throw one heckuva feast! Roasted turkey leg, anyone?)
Here’s what I mean: as I read through one of the Gospels the other day, a certain phrase suddenly caught my eye. Truthfully, it’s not one most folks would consider to be all that significant. You know; one like, “Thus sayeth the Lord…”. Nope; in truth, this one is kindof innocuous, and goes like this: “it came to pass”.
But here’s an interesting fact for ya: Did you know in the King James Version of the Bible that simple little phrase occurs 452 times? Yep; sure enough! Hey, maybe it’s not so insignificant after all!
Whenever I see it, though, I can’t help but connect it with something I heard from one of my previous Pastors, when he was speaking about enduring personal trials. “Even though your trials may have come to pass,” he’d said, “just remember, folks, they haven’t come to stay.”
That clever little turn of a phrase has always stuck with me. Believe me, it’s been quite the encouragement over the years. Every time I find myself in the midst of a trial of some kind or other (which, alas, seems a rather common occurrence in this life), that little phrase always serves as a comforting reminder:
It’s only come to pass; it’s not come to stay.
The Smoker’s Car
Back in 2000, my wife and I had the opportunity to visit Grenoble, France. We hopped the Atlantic (or, “the Pond”, as our European friends call it) on a direct flight from Houston to Paris, but since our destination was in the mountains of southern France, we decided to take a train for that last part of the trip. Scenery, you know. (Sadly, there just aren’t too many mountain vistas available in my home town of Houston – unless you count the occasional freeway overpasses, which typically don’t have snow-capped peaks; not even in winter.)
As it turned out, though, the trip was a bit harder to take than we expected. Oh, not because of a lack of incredible scenery (believe me, there was plenty). Nope; it was because yours truly had inadvertently bought tickets in a smoker’s car. (Oh, did I mention? We don’t smoke.) Yuck!
Alas, when I purchased those tickets back in Houston, I simply hadn’t thought to specify “non-smoking”. In my defense, though, it’s not something travelers here in the U.S. need consider much – these days all public transportation is non-smoking. (Needless to say, it definitely made the “lessons learned” list, should there ever be a next time!)
Anyway, we spent something like four hours in this railroad car, and the smoke from the other passengers left us barely able to breathe. It was tough, lemme tell ya! It got so bad, my wife had to periodically go out to that space between the cars every now and then, just to catch her breath.
Now, in the train car, seats were arranged facing each other, sorta like a booth in a restaurant. And of course, the gentleman sitting opposite us was a smoker. But here’s the surprise – when he noticed our evident discomfort, he stopped smoking and put his cigarettes away. (Probably noticed the interesting shades of purple our faces turned while trying to hold our breath for 4 hours straight.) Now there’s a random act of kindness for ya!
This so impressed us that we struck up a conversation with him. He had obviously overheard that we were headed for Grenoble, so over the next few hours proceeded to tell us some of the great spots he thought we’d enjoy visiting.
We also spent some time trying to learn how to properly pronounce “Grenoble” (although I don’t think we ever really got it right). The last 40 minutes or so provided, as expected, some spectacular scenery, and finally the trip was over.
At last, we could breathe freely again!
On the other hand, the most significant thing about the experience was that, because we handled ourselves well (at least in this gentleman’s eyes), we were able to enjoy the trip despite the overwhelming presence of *cough*cough* smoke – and make a new friend, to boot.
Well, So What?
Granted; in the vast scheme of things, spending 3 or 4 hours in a smoker’s car on a train in France was a relatively easy trial to endure. I mean, I’m fairly sure it didn’t cause any permanent health issues, no financial disasters occurred, and it had no lasting impact on the world at large.
Besides… after everything was said and done, we were still on holiday – in, y’know, France! I mean, compared to that, all else was really kinda minor, right?
Even so, this experience serves as a simple illustration of the principle that trials really do “come to pass”, and not to stay. Trials, in truth, are there for you to grow. That’s their purpose. Once you’ve endured them, learned from them, and/or grown from them, they either move on – or you do.
Sometimes I think it helps if we substitute the word “test” for the word “trial”. Now, think for a minute about the tests you took in school. (Wow; can you believe it? I just broke into a sweat as my Chemistry 101 course came to mind!)
OK, now here’s a question for you: What do you suppose is the real purpose of a test, anyway? And who, exactly, is the test for? (Yes, you in the back with the Groucho Marx nose-glasses on. What’s that you say? Bingo! Go to the head of the class!)
That’s right; tests are always for your benefit – and no one else’s. Yep; the fact is, you’re the one who needs to know what you know. In fact, if we’re goin’ for complete honesty (and we always strive for that here), then you may as well realize that, other than statistically, how you do on a test simply makes no difference to your instructor. (Trust me; you’ll notice this especially in college.) I know it’s shocking; but nonetheless, it’s true.
No, the fact is, when you take a test, its real purpose is to demonstrate to yourself how you’re doin’ in that particular subject, you know? And tests generally serve that function very well, if you ask me.
Now, let’s go back to that word, “trials”.
So what are trials for? Well, they’re for us to know how we’ll handle them. And how we handle them is what we need to know. What? Did you think God doesn’t know that already? (After all, He is God; you can’t surprise Him.)
Trials, in fact, show us who we are.
*****
2
REALITY CHECK
It never fails, right? You’re finally settled into that groove, so to speak, and managing to handle all those wonderful little trials that come your way. In fact, maybe you feel like you’re finally getting a handle on life in general, and you’re feelin’ pretty good about things.
Unfortunately, that’s when reality has a way of sneakin’ up behind you and bitin’ you right in the, er, nether regions!
__________
Have you ever experienced one of those incredible, shining moments of glory – you know, when everything seems to be going your way – only to find out it, er, wasn’t what you thought after all?
Yep; thought so. Well, all I can say is… been there.
Standing a Little Taller
Like quite a few U.S. companies these days, the engineering company I worked for had a “business casual” dress code. Thus, when we saw anyone walking around our offices with a tie, it made ‘em stand out. Generally it meant they were a client.
However, for about a year or so I switched jobs within the company, moving from the engineering department over to their consulting group. And just before actually making the move, one thing I remembered from previous consulting gigs was that consultants usually wore ties. Sometimes, depending on the client or the job, we even “suited up” occasionally. So on my first day, I decided to wear a tie, just for the heck of it. Y’know; to make a good first impression.
As it turned out, though, nobody in that part of the company wore ties either. Oh, well.
Anyway, so there I was strolling around the office with my fancy tie on. Folks who didn’t know me thought I was a client (which was a pretty interesting feeling, actually). In fact, I found myself squaring up my shoulders a bit, sucking in the ol’ tummy, and standing a little taller. Hey, I said to myself, maybe there’s something to this “dress for success” thing after all.
Then I got to thinkin’, what if I just said the heck with it and wore a tie all the time? I mean, so what if no one else does it? (Call me crazy, but it so happens I enjoy wearing ties to work.)
The upshot is, I ended up wearing one every day I worked there. Did it bother me that I was the only one? (Not even my immediate boss wore one!) Nope, not in the least. Besides, I liked the way it made me feel, y’know?
I remember thinkin’, Who knows; maybe wearing a tie will actually change my life in some wonderful way? Maybe it will lead to greater things? I mean, you never know, right? (Mind you, I had no idea what things wearing a tie could possibly lead to; but hey, it was my fantasy.)
Well, this one particular morning I accidentally left my badge at home. (In the building I worked in, you weren’t supposed to go past the guard’s desk without a badge. Hey, it’s really no big deal; if one forgot or lost their badge, well, they had to get a temporary one from the receptionist.) In this case, since I usually arrived before the receptionist did, it meant a short wait in the lobby – maybe 10 minutes, tops.
While I was waiting, though, the most interesting thing happened. Within a few minutes, I noticed the President of the Regional office enter the lobby. What was weird, though, was as soon as he walked in the door, his eyes glanced around the lobby and immediately fastened right on… me!
My Big Moment Arrives
Uh-oh, I thought; now what’s this about? He headed my way, and now I’m startin’ to wonder just what the heck is goin’ on.
My brain, of course, did what it always does when confronted with a potentially high-stress situation; it quickly switched into overdrive, hastily preparing a series of handy responses (just in case, you understand). I don’t recall the entire list, but the first one was, “I didn’t do it!”. I believe a little farther down the list was yet another old favorite, “I don’t care what you heard – it ain’t true!” Somewhere down at the bottom of the list was a final, fallback option: “Howdy, I’m… Joe!” (After all, since I wasn’t wearing a badge, how would he know?)
Sure enough, he made a beeline straight for me, stuck out his hand and introduced himself. You would’ve been proud of me, though; I played it totally cool. I gripped his hand firmly, gave him a big smile, and said, “Howdy, I’m Bob Hruzek.” (Amazing how, when that critical moment finally arrived, my usually dependable brain totally cratered on me!)
Suddenly, it was as if time stood still for a moment. I had no idea what was going on. I’d never met the President of the company before – and honestly never really expected to. I mean, it was a pretty big company after all. To say I was puzzled is something of an understatement.
Meanwhile my poor overworked brain was showing signs of overheating…
What could this possibly be all about, I wondered. Some new program where the Big Boss gets out to “meet the folks”? Hey, maybe he heard good things about me from my boss, and was so impressed that he simply had to come over and say hello? I mean, I’d seen him on my floor on occasion. Had I been the subject of a conversation or two? Was there some special assignment they had in mind that no one else was best qualified? Was this to be my moment?
All of which was eventually topped off by this kicker of a thought: Wow, maybe I really AM somebody? Yep; I could tell things were about to get pretty silly.
It Ain’t the Fall; It’s That Sudden Stop at the Bottom
It all came crashing down within moments, though. Time came unfrozen, as soon as I said my name and saw the surprise on his face. That’s when the truth of the situation doused me like a glass of cold water down the back of my shirt. Yep; that’s when I realized he had expected to meet someone else – someone who, as luck would have it, would probably be wearing a tie. In other words, a client.
After a brief – and somewhat awkward – moment, he said those words we all love to hear: “Oh, sorry! I thought you were someone else,” and, just like that, he turned around, went off to the elevators, and disappeared.
Alas, my brief, shining moment of imagined self-importance and glory melted away like an ice cube on a Houston sidewalk in August.
And… I still had no badge. Sigh.
Don’cha just hate it when that happens? I mean, how easy was it to start thinking of myself in glowing terms; to begin to, as the Apostle Paul once warned against in Romans 12:3, “…to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think”?
Well, as it turned out, it was pretty easy!
Hey, as reality checks go, this one wasn’t so bad. But that’s OK. After all, I did get to meet the Boss. Hey, you never know; maybe one day I’ll be shaking his hand for something I actually, y’know, did.
*****
3
CONSIDER THE SOURCE
How do you determine the trustworthiness of a source? That’s the issue, isn’t it? Every day we’re bombarded with a literal avalanche of data, and our decisions can have the power to affect even our very lives for years to come. Trust, as it turns out, is crucial.
__________
OK; here’s your question for the Day: When you’re confronted with a multiple choice situation (you know, like the kind you face almost each and every day) – and you truly don’t know which answer is the best – well, what do you do? How do you make a decision when things just aren’t quite so clear cut?
Are you familiar with the Bible story of Jonah and the whale? I know, I know – not everybody’s heard it. (And lest you have a conniption and holler out “Hey, ya big galoot; it WASN’T a whale!” – you’re right! If you’ll just bear with me a bit…) Rather than assume you know what I’m talking about, here’s a quick synopsis:
A Clear Command
OK, to begin with, one thing we do know about Jonah is that he had something of an, shall we say, er, “unwilling” heart. I mean, God had an assignment for him, and had laid it out in no uncertain terms: go to the city of Nineveh and tell them to repent. (Ninevah had a rather seedy reputation, and was known far and wide as the Sin City of that day.) If they didn’t – well, let’s just say they wouldn’t be needin’ to plan next year’s big parade, if you get my meanin’.
However, Jonah, bein’ the fine, upstanding example of obedience to God, decided he wanted no part of it. Interestingly enough, it wasn’t because he didn’t want to actually be a prophet. No, the sad truth was that he was so full of prejudice and anger toward the Ninevites that he didn’t want ‘em to repent – no, he wanted ‘em flat out destroyed!
(On a side note, here’s a question for ya: Ever had the misfortune to run across someone like that? Someone so rabidly angry or prejudiced you could barely even have a conversation with them? Yup; thought so. I have, too, and it ain’t pretty!)
The Wrong Response
Anyway, instead of heading to Nineveh as he was supposed to, he jumped on the first ship going in the exact opposite direction. Definitely a moment of insanity; I mean, did he really think he could run from God?
As luck would have it, while out to sea a huge storm blew up. (OK, all together now: “How bad was it?”) Well, it was so bad, the ship’s experienced and highly-capable crew began to fear for their very lives! Jonah, on the other hand, and in a fit of remorse, confessed to them he was running from God – and the storm was obviously all his fault. He also added that if they tossed him overboard – hey, it would solve everybody’s problems.
Naturally the sailors, who also happened to be a fairly superstitious lot, thought this was an absolutely wonderful idea! And, as far as Jonah was concerned, he probably figured this solution, at the very least, would solve his own problems as well – since he would be, you know, dead.
Now here’s where the most well-known and interesting part of the story happens. After being thrown overboard, a huge sea creature came along and swallowed him up – and immediately the troubled sea calmed down. On seeing that, the ship’s crew naturally thought to themselves, well, scratch one prophet, and proceeded to sail on their merry way.
(By the way, the Bible calls the sea creature a “big fish”, but the fact is most folks simply use the word “whale”. Truth be told, there’s no telling what the creature really was. All we know for sure is that it was most definitely big enough to swallow Jonah whole. That makes it at least as big as a whale, anyway!)
See, God had given Jonah an assignment, and in truth, he really had no choice. (Ever been through something like this with your children? Yep, thought so.) So Jonah, who, according to the Biblical account spent three days in the belly of this whale (let’s just use the convenient term for it, OK?), finally told God, “You win – I’ll do it!”
Naturally God was not surprised.
So on the third day of his undersea adventure, the whale spits ol’ Jonah up on the beach (yuk; being turned into whale puke isn’t exactly my favorite image – but on the other hand, at least it beats the alternative, if you get my meanin’), and he heads off (Jonah, not the whale) to do what he shoulda done in the first place – go to Nineveh.
A Credible Messenger
Now, imagine the scene with me…
Here’s your typical Ninevite fisherman, standing up to his knees in the warm Mediterranean surf, happily fishing away and generally minding his own business. It’s nighttime (hey, everybody knows the best surf fishing is done at night), and he’s out there all alone.
Yup. He’s all… alone. In fact, it’s almost kinda spooky.
Out of the darkness, he begins to hear the sound of someone slosh-slosh-sloshing noisily out of the water towards him. Then, like an apparition from his worst nightmare, Jonah suddenly appears before him, and in my mind (which is admittedly a very strange place), this guy had to be somethin’ to see!
He’s bleached completely white from three days’ exposure to the stomach acids in the whale’s belly. His clothes are in tatters. There’s a piece of seaweed stuck in his hair right there. And then, to cap it off, he walks right up to the terrified fisherman, points his long, bony finger at him and says, “Repent!”
What would you do? Well Bubba – I’d repent!
In fact it should come as no surprise that within a short time of his arrival, the people of Nineveh – well, they all repented!
Now let’s think about that for a minute.
The Biblical account seems to indicate the people of Nineveh didn’t have to be told who God was. As it turned out, they pretty much already knew. All they really needed was a messenger with, well, credibility.
You may be thinking to yourself, but wait a minute; didn’t God have enough credibility of His own? Well, sure – but that’s the problem; the problem was they were ignoring Him. So, to resolve that little detail, He sent a very special messenger to get their attention.
Now granted, someone who looked like how Jonah might have looked probably wouldn’t be taken too seriously these days, y’know? I mean, I’ve certainly seen stranger folks in my own travels – and you probably have too. But take my word for it; back then, this sort of thing was pretty unusual. I mean, it wasn’t your every day occurrence that someone who’d spent three days in the belly of a whale dropped by for a chat.
Come to think of it, up until then, there just weren’t a whole lot of people who’d been swallowed by a whale and lived to tell about it at all. But I’m telling ya, it certainly got their attention! What’s more, it gave the message he had to deliver more weight.
How to Evaluate Advice
I bet you’ve been wondering where I’m going with this line of thought.
Well, it’s like this. All day, every day, we’re called upon to pass judgment on all kinds of things. In fact, for most folks it’s a never ending stream of decisions based on information supplied. So how do we make up our minds?
The answer is simple, really.
When you want to try a new restaurant, what do you do? You ask around to see if someone you know has been there, right? If you need to find a good lawyer, it’s pretty much the same thing: you check for references among the people you know. Interested in dating a certain person? Don’t you first go check out what your friends know (and are willing to tell you) about them?
See, you have to consider the source. The more you know about (and believe – and/or trust) the messenger – well, the more credible the message is.
Take politics, for instance (please!) Granted, what we hear is filtered through our own experiences and, let’s face it, prejudices. A political conservative, for instance, would probably view any given situation a certain way; likewise for liberals (and bear in mind, I use these terms in their broadest sense).
Sooner or later, though, you’re going to have to make a decision based on what someone has told you. Hey, it happens all the time; in business, in your personal life – like I said, all the time. And there will be times when you simply can’t know with certainty the truth of everything you hear.
When that happens, you have no choice but to fall back on that final line of defense: Consider the source.
*****
4
PICK UP WHERE YOU LEFT OFF
Sometimes the most obscure stories in the Bible’s Old Testament seem to reach right out and touch me in ways that are amazing to behold! The question: What do the prophet Elisha and… Calculus have to do with each other? The answer: You’d be surprised!
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In our previous tale I mentioned what is arguably one of the most well-known Bible stories of all time, The Tale of Jonah and the Really, Really Big Fish.
But there’s another story that possibly ranks right up there as one of the least-known stories is this one found in the book of 2 Kings. To be honest, at first I thought it to be just an “interesting little story”. But if you’ll bear with me a few minutes, I think you’ll find that there’s a remarkable truth to be learned from it.
The Lost Ax Head
The story is in Chapter 6, and relates a time when the Prophet Elisha, who at the time ran a school for young prophets, decided to expand his operation a bit in order to house a growing number of students. (The prophet business must have been doing pretty well at the time.)
While chopping a tree, however, one of the students lost his ax head in the Jordan River. Remember, in those days, an ax head was an inordinately valuable piece of equipment. Naturally, the student was aghast at this dire turn of events and went to Elisha for help.
Now, the Jordan is a fast-flowing and very muddy river, so jumping in and recovering it was problematical at best. (Not to mention the minor little detail that very few people knew how to swim back then!) However, after asking the young fellow to point out the spot, Elisha tossed a stick in the water, right where it fell in. To the astonishment of the young prophet, the ax head immediately rose right up to the surface of the river, and, well, swam to the shore – where it was recovered with great relief.
OK, by now you may be thinking to yourself, Uh, say what? The prophet Elisha? Floating ax heads? What has that got to do with me? Well… I need to share a little story first.
On Calculus and Motivation
My quest to become an engineer was a somewhat long and, er, crooked road. In fact, when I started, I didn’t even know that’s what I wanted to do for a living; I just went to college because it was expected of me. (Sadly, I had no real appreciation for what my parents did for me at the time. What can I say? I was young – and stupid.)
After about a year and a half of college, however, I decided to give up on my engineering degree and go to work (I blame it on Calculus, but in truth, it was simply a question of motivation). So naturally I got a job in – engineering! (Trust me; it wasn’t on purpose. It’s just the only place I was qualified, and I didn’t want to work in construction.)
Ironically, 20 years later I realized I did indeed want to be an engineer (in the background I could hear my parents saying “I told you so!”) So what to do? Well, no doubt you will agree that the next move was obvious: I had to go back to college.
It wasn’t a question of now wanting to be an engineer; the desire was finally there. I could even visualize it; taste it; heck, I could feel it! But before I could finish the dream and accomplish the goal, well, I had to go back to the point where I had “lost it”, so to speak. I had to finish what I’d started before moving forward. Quite simply, I had to pick up where I left off.
So Where Did You Drop It?
Let’s start with some leading questions.
Are there any big plans you’ve had in the back of your mind for some time now – dreams that still manage to stir your heart every time you think about ‘em? Is there a B.H.A.G. (big, hairy, audacious goal) waiting for you every time you close your eyes? Is there something you just know you’re destined to accomplish in this lifetime?
Have you ever begun workin’ towards a B.H.A.G., but somewhere along the way, well, you just kinda ran out of steam?
If this has ever happened to you, then, trust me my friend, you’re not alone! Hey, I know exactly how it feels! In fact, it’s probably a safe bet that nearly everyone has experienced this sort of thing at one time or another.
Now suppose you dust off that dream? Suppose you begin to think again about how exciting and great it would be to accomplish that thing you began way back when? C’mon, be honest; can’t you feel a stirring begin within your heart? Wait a minute – was that your soul jumping up and down with excitement? Can you hear it telling you to go! go! go!
OK; here’s what you do. Go back to that place you were when your dream fell off the ax handle and dropped into the river. Consider carefully what you’ve already done toward accomplishing it. Think hard about what you know now, and compare it with what you knew then. Allow the hope to well up within you and begin to visualize that thing, accomplished!
I promise you; if you’ll diligently do those things, you’ll see that dream resurface from the muddy waters of time, just like a, well, a certain ax head that fell into a muddy river. You’ll see it miraculously float to the surface and swim to the shore. Suddenly, you’ll find it’s within your power to reach out and take hold of it!
Kinda begs the question, doesn’t it? What will you do now?