Casting Stones

Casting stones is something we all do from time to time, try as we might to not do it. There seems to be a link to the DNA of fallen man that keeps us from minding our own business. When we find some juicy tidbit of information that will damage someone else, we cannot wait to throw that stone at him or her. Recently, let us say the past five years or so, yours truly seems to have been more the target of stones than the thrower. Maybe some of that is proving the truth of God's universal law of sowing and reaping.

I used to have a very good arm. It is a little know fact that my name used to be on the records board at the high school I attended for the second-longest softball throw in school history. I admit, I was having a good day when I tossed that ball 267 feet. I was only off the record by 22 feet. That was my senior year so I have no idea how long the record stood. That was also about two years before I landed on my elbow playing tackle football in the park and dislocated my shoulder. I still managed to play outfield in college baseball, but the arm has never been the same. (heavy sigh.)

I am telling you that because, for many years, I could cast stones with the best of them--and I was accurate. I could embarrass almost anyone with a piece of information that I had acquired about him or her. As I write that, I wonder what I was thinking. I suppose I was not.

Fast forward to the present day. I think there is a post somewhere in this blog about reputation. (I am too lazy to look it up for you right now.) I do not have much of one. A few people have seen to that over the past several years. I might have helped them along a little and given them some stones to cast. I really have no idea where they got the ones that damaged me the most, the ones that seem to have manifested out of thin air. (If you are not following the poetry here, the last ones fall into the category of bold-faced lies.) People have believed them anyway, and repeated them.

Nothing is all bad in God's economy. A friend reminded me today, "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28) I would not even have recognized the religious spirit over this valley had someone not lied about me and had that lie not then been repeated. Through that sequence of events, the Holy Spirit revealed at least a part of my destiny. I have a part in helping pull down that demonic stronghold.

King Solomon, in his natural wisdom tells us there is, "A time to cast away stones, And a time to gather stones..." (Ecclesiastes 3:5) Take this as a prophetic word if you like. Now is the time to cast away the stones you have been gathering to use against your brothers and sisters, and gather some you can use to build the Kingdom of God. The end.