Dan Byl

Someone asked me a question the other day…. The question was this, “is there such a thing as feeding pearls to swine?” As we all go through life we come up against people, we believe to be a waste of our time. The ones that really “piss us off.” (I believe that is the politically correct term.)

What should we do? The bible tells us to love our enemies because what does it prove, if we just love those that love us? We should also turn the other cheek.

What does that really look like? So often, I think we misinterpret the meaning of love we take the love part to mean that we need to work towards being “buddy buddy,” which in most cases is nearly impossible.

There are a couple people in my life that I can’t stand,(don’t worry none of you are one of those people) they drive me up the crazy tree where I hiss and scratch at them from the safety of the top limb.

What we need to realize is that we are not called to be “buddy buddy”, just to love everyone. Was Jesus best friends with the Pharisees? What does it mean to Love? It means responding, not reacting. It means not insulting the guy that was kicking the back of your chair all class, behind his back. It means that you care, that you bring your issues and that person to God and you leave them there. And you practice that little thing called self-restraint.

The reality is this, you probably have nothing in common with that loud mouth kid in the back of the class, so trying to relate to him in a, “I want to be your friend” kind of way is a waist of his and your time.

But not feeding the insecurities that make him that loud mouth waist of air, is loving him.

I don’t know if that answers the question, but I don’t think there is such a thing as swine in the world of people, and that thinking is what makes “those people” what they are and we are called to break that perception.

A question to ask is this, (oh I do love clichés) how does God see that person? And again you don’t need to be their friend but you can respect and love them. Even from the top branch of the crazy tree.

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