I want to share about spit. Our pastor, Bill Dwyer, told a story about a psychiatrist and another guy in an elevator, with the bellhop. When the guy is about to get out, he spits in the shrink's face. Then he exits. The shrink wipes the spit off and they continue on. The next day the same thing happens. Guy spits in shrink's face, then gets off the elevator. No words spoken. When the scenario repeats itself on the third day, the bellhop can't stand it anymore. "Why are you just standing there and letting that guy do that to You? Isn't that making you mad or something?" The shrink answers, " I don't really know what this man's issues are with me. He hasn't chosen to tell me, so whatever they are, they are his issues, not mine."
Okay, a lot of people had issues with this example. "What if", they conjectured, "it'd had been a knife the guy had and he'd stabbed him?" Keeping mind that this was a class on boundaries. Bill pointed out that those people would probably be in jail- which seems to me to be a very clear boundary.
It seemed at first that this might not be a good example of what he was trying to show, that we don't have to take on other people's problems, don't have to "take" offense.
But do you let people just spit in your face?
The next day, in my reading, I was directed by my daily prayer focus, (through Chuck Pierce) to Mark 8:22-26. The middle part says, "So He (Jesus) took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town. And when he had spit on his eyes and put His hands on him, He asked him if he saw anything...... And he was restored and saw everything clearly."
The question Chuck Pierce posed with it was this: Could you tolerate being SPIT ON?
Are you so conventional that an unconventional method of change would offend you?
Then I thought, maybe this is the attitude that lends itself to turning the other cheek. Could I tolerate being spit on? Could I turn the other cheek. Could I let Jesus do something, or allow something in my life that would seem like an insult, in order to free up new vision in me? What would that look like?
Just some thoughts on spit.
