. . . . . 

Did No One Try To Talk To Him?

That’s what I often said after the story broke, or the obvious and therefore expected “train wreck” took place!

Whether it be RZIM/Ravi Zacharias, President Donald Trump, Paige Paterson, Tim Litton, Jimmy Swaggart, Jimmy Bakker, Bill Gates, numerous sports personalities caught up in all kinds of abuse or immorality, Dave Ramsey, and far too many ministry leaders and pastors — Did no one TRY to Talk to Them?

The answer is — YES, someone tried!  

At a point in time, someone tries to intervene! — perhaps early on, or when it was unintentionally too late —   because “Friends don’t let friends. . . . !”

So how is it that those friends are not able to convince their friends to change course?  Regrettably, the answer may be multiple, but surely one of the answers is . . .  They are “parochial” — “Narrowly restricted  in scope or outlook.”

Wrong-doers can’t see outside of their own vantage and thinking.  They are convinced, primarily self-convinced, that their vantage is the correct and even singularly correct viewpoint!  I say primarily self-convince because even without any external support, they would be convinced.  However, people outside and around them also feed into the desired “narrative” — a spouse, close friends, the ambitious, faint-hearted co-workers, and kind-hearted, gracious people — at least for a while! 

“They believed their own press.” The “press” is different, but the results are the same.

With President Donald Trump, it was and is the enormous crowds.
With Dave Ramsey, it was the office and staff workers who know their job was on the line.
With Ravi, it was ministry and organizational success.
With Bill Gates, it is his wealth and entitlement mentality.
With sports personalities, it is actually “press,” along with the absurd money.
With . . . 

As David Foster Wallace illustrated in “The Greatest Commencement Speech of All Time” . . . . .

“There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What [in the world] is water?”

All of us live in the fishbowl of our own thinking — surrounded by “water” that is more often than not unrecognized and therefore unexamined.  A lack of self-awareness fuels that lack of examination!

Too often, the stated or unstated response, in word or thought, is —  “What in the world are you talking about.”

“Didn’t anyone talk to them about it?
The answer is, “yes.”  Sometimes obliquely, sometimes personally, sometimes simply, sometimes painfully and truthfully, and sometimes confrontationally — but someone spoke to them because “Friends don’t let friends . . . . “

The problem is not that friends did not speak up, but that . . . .
(We all know the rest of the sentence.  We know it all too well!)