Good Morning Dumb Ass

This morning my wife and I had a bit of a chuckle because she miss understood me.  Our morning routine is like this, right now.  I get up first, go try to spend some quiet time with God and write in my journal.  Then I check on my wife see if she is ready to get up.  Somewhere in there, I will bring my mum tea and maybe her breakfast.  Then I do my morning exercises for my back.  Next, I make breakfast for the family.  Usually my mum first, if I haven't already fed her, then I'll make breakfast for my wife and I which I bring in the bedroom (most mornings) and then it's time to get ready for work for me and my wife get's in her workout clothes.

Well this morning things were running a bit slow.  We got to bed late that past few evenings and so I didn't get right up.  I finally drug myself out of bed at about 6:30 and attempted to have some quiet time with the Lord and then after journaling at bit, I went in to check on my wife (about 7:45) who was still sleeping.  So I went back out made mum's morning tea and did my morning exercises.  After my exercises I checked in on my wife and roused her.  I said, "I'm going to make breakfast for mum and us." But what she heard was "Good morning dumb ass."

Now you have to realize that we have been married for 44 years and counting; and name calling is not one of our things.  There have been times when we have accused each other of criticizing the other but it hasn't been our habit to use the "b" word or to call the other stupid let alone dumb.  But on the other side I think if I had thought that she had said something like "dumb ass", I would have taken umbrage and worse yet I wouldn't have given her the benefit of doubt.  I would have denied that I misunderstood what had been said.

I think that when we are younger there is the assumption that we know what is right and what we heard.  If we think someone insulted us then it must have been done maliciously and the other person's intent was to harm our psyche or reputation, when there may have been just a misunderstanding.  I think one of the biggest and most freeing changes in my life was when I stated to think, "Hey, maybe I miss understood or maybe I forgot."  So now if my wife says that I said such and such and I have no memory of it, instead of denying that I said it or did it, I just say, "Oh, that's funny, I don't remember saying or doing that?"

Human memories are not infallible.  What might seem like a crystal clear memory to us is some fuzzy logic stored way in our brains that changes every time recall it.  It has been proven that in fact people can cause us to change what we remember by making suggestions while we recall or recount it.   So part of my maturity has been coming to the place where I don't stand on my memories as facts.  Instead I am willing to hear how someone else remembers the events even if they don't line up with how I remember them.

There are people with eidetic memories but I am not one of them.  In fact it is more often found in children than adults and among children it is only 2-10 percent.  It is so freeing to realize that we are not always right.  When we stop defending our interpretations and memories and listen to others, we might actually learn something.

I think the biggest down fall of married couples is putting being right over coming back together.  Some of the worst fights I have had with my wife have been the ones where one or both of us refuse to compromise on our view or our stance.  Somehow being "right" becomes our objective rather than getting to know our spouse better.  Standing on or rightness is just pure pride and arrogance.  We know that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.  Better to be humble with another person than to be opposed by God. 

This doesn't mean we have to agree with everything someone else spouts, but it does mean we don't have to turn it into a contest of wills.  We can agree to disagree on some things.  I neither consider myself strictly conservative no liberal.  I am a moderate, but I am sure that to some I would seem liberal and to others conservative.

This gives me the freedom to love people right where they are without judging them even when I don't agree with their world views on any number of topics.  Now I do believe in absolute truths.  I have had personal encounters with God and have been transformed by the power of God's Holy Spirit and the transformative truths written in the Bible.  But knowing God and is Word and being filled with his Holy Spirit doesn't make me inherently right.  It just gives me insight into God's absolute and immutable Truth.  But not everyone has discovered this transformative life.  In fact some are bound up by false beliefs.

I believe that there are deceiving spirits roaming about the world causing all sorts of havoc.  Some people have been taken captive by such lying spirits and don't realize it.  Arguing with such people is fruitless.  They are not our enemies, they are victims of spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly realms.  I want my life to be a living testimony to the greatness and goodness of God.  I want His Love to pour out through me in how I treat the least of them.  I want to live by the Spirit in humility and love; being a beacon to others who may one day ask me about the Hope that I have.  So I pray for the lost and speak the Truth in love and humility.

So the next time you think someone is calling you a dumb ass, give them the benefit of the doubt, and choose to think the better thing and laugh about it.


Serving The King of Kings,
Rev Alan J Beckett
A.k.a. Preacher Al

Going Beyond Perceived Truth and Opinions

Proverbs 18:2 -"A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions."
Proverbs 12:23 "A prudent man conceals knowledge, But the heart of fools proclaims foolishness."


The topic of telling the truth to people has come up on my FB page more that once.  Basically, the post seems to say or imply that telling people the truth isn't being mean it's being forthright.  I can relate as at times I have tended to just tell people what I thought about things because I was convinced of my own rightness; that is just arrogance.  In fact, a friend of mine at our going away to Ukraine Luau said, "Before I met Alan, I thought that I was the most arrogant person..." So as to say that he found me to be quite arrogant.  Of course, I tend to think of myself as being well informed and humble.  But as I pass the 60-year mark I find that I am not as smart as I thought I was.  I am finding that if I shut my mouth and listen and stop trying to win the argument, I can learn a few things.

People who are convinced of their rightness are often just prattling fools.  They are self-deceived and in need of a Jethro Leroy Gibbs reset (slap in the back of the head).  What is funny as those very prattling fools I am talking about won't even realize that I am talking about them, just as I wouldn't have.

I don't know if is age or time, or just God's relentless transformative work, but it seems that this lesson isn't learned for most until after the age of 50.  When we are young, we tend to think we are the first to discover a concept and that everyone older than us is terribly uninformed.  But as time goes on some of those things that we were so convinced of as eternal truths turn out to be fanciful thinking and mere opinion. Part of this can be explained by the scientific fact that our brains don't finish growing until we are in our twenties.  Then our brains continue to mature and make more connections as we mature.  We may lose some of our brains elasticity as we get older, but ordinarily, we don't get dumber.

Those who claim the premise of being right or knowing the truth at the expense of others have not learned that it is Love, not Truth or Knowledge that is the trump card.  When you dismiss someone else's dignity because you think you are right you have missed the point and you are just a self-important fool who is more interested in your own opinion than in what is really right and true.

The fool thinks him/herself wise but their lack of love for others, their use of abusive language and their demeaning of others tells another story,  Jesus said you will know a tree by its fruit.  Good fruit is Agape love.  Good fruit is respect for human dignity.  The bad tree fails to see anything but its own truncated perspective and spews its own vile and prideful attitudes and calls it truth.  Good fruit is born out of humility and time spent with the Master.

So the next time you are convinced that you are right - think twice.  You may just be a noisy gong and clanging cymbal devoid of God's love.

In Him
Preacher Al