I just returned home from a brutal speaking trip in which I contracted a respiratory infection. I slept most of the way home on the plane from Phoenix and finally arrived exhausted and sick; I ate some supper and went to bed at 6 p.m. I awoke 13 hours later and hence Words for the Day is late this morning.
The good news: though I feel like warmed over death, I think I’m gonna live; that’s about it.
I went to Phoenix in part to meet with a major movie producer who has a keen interest in making a major movie of my book, Miracle on Luckie Street. He read it in just a few days and really liked it and feels that it has big screen potential.
Before I began writing the book a friend of mine who did a Reader’s Digest article on my life offered some advice. He told me I needed to make up my mind as to which audience I wanted to reach with it. He asked, “Do you want to write it to the Christian audience or the secular, (unsaved)”?
I responded that I’d hoped that they both might read it; however if I could only go to one or the other then I would opt for the unsaved. He told me to be totally honest in the book, (don’t water it down), and don’t hold anything back and write it in such a manner that they would read it and find it to be truthful. He said if I watered it down they would know it and perceive it to be disingenuous. He told me this several times for emphasis!
I took his advice and wrote an honest account of my life, tempering it only enough to avoid legal problems and/or unnecessarily hurt others.
The book is raw and is not the kind of book that will ever end up on a Christian bookstore shelf, and many of the religiosity crowd would put their noses to the air and wouldn’t read it for love or money. Paradoxically many of the secular don’t want it on their bookshelves either, because it details my conversion to Jesus Christ and I give Him all of the credit for transforming my life.
So I knew when I wrote the book that it wouldn’t be a big hit with either crowd. The fundamentalist religious bunch doesn’t like it because it details the horrible decadence of life on the mean streets in real terms, and the non-religious don’t like it, because it has the truth of how Jesus transformed my life.
So now two years have passed, and as it nears going into its third printing it is interesting to note how many folks from both sides of the equation have read the book and have been equally deeply moved by it and are supporters of it.
Hmmm . . .
I’ve found that life is bi-polar; it can be incredibly ugly and not like the pretty little flower depicted by the feel-good prosperity preachers like Joel Olsteen, or it can be grand. (Take today for example, I feel rotten like I would have to get better to die, and yet just a day or two ago I felt like I was sitting on top of the world.)
Much to the chagrin of the religiosity crowd, Jesus dined with sinners and drunkards and associated with various scoundrels throughout His ministry. His mantra in part was to go where the sinners were and there He would minister to them in their own realm. He didn’t become one mind you; He merely went where they were and ministered to them. We would do well to listen to the Spirit on this one . . . Selah . . .
When someone hits their thumb with a hammer, the last thing they want to do is hear someone say with some fake plastic grin on their face, “Hey man don’t sweat it, your thumb will quit hurting in a little while. Isn’t it just so-o-o-o sweet to know the Lord?”
GRRRRR! *&%$
I mean give me some space and let me cry . . .
I spoke 11 times in 2 days last week. My last stop was the Vero Beach Yacht Club. When I looked around the room I shook my head and muttered under my breath, “I don’t know why that nut (who booked my speaking engagements for this trip), booked me to speak to this group of blue hairs. They looked like they were all in their 80’s and 90’s. How is my message gonna resonate with them; I’d felt much more comfortable in the prison I was in the day before.
After my talk, I nearly missed my plane because so many of them wanted me to sign multiple copies of books that they were buying for their kids and grandkids. These older folks get it; life ain’t grand all of the time and folks need hope and inspiration in order to make it. While they don’t personally need that hope, they all seemed to know (and be related to) multiple folks in their uber rich world who did need it. (I heard many of those tearful stories as I signed their books to them.)
Well now I’m faced with the same dilemma. Do I make the movie for the Christians whereby it is almost a guaranteed box office hit, or do I try the general market and leave it raw and hope for the best on it making an impact upon their relationship with Jesus and take a huge gamble that few will watch it.
Hmmm . . . Another movie producer wants me to go the opposite route and get a religious focus group to examine the script and take out the parts that are too offensive to achieve the goal of having it endorsed by the pastors of churches. It is almost a sure thing to sell lots of movies if this route is chosen.
I just cannot envision a religious focus group that is primarily comprised of folks who haven’t faced real problems in their sheltered lives allowing the parts that I believe make the story effective into the movie. In my mind at least those are the parts that make it real and relevant and that so many can relate to their own lives or the lives of someone they know. It makes them understand that the same Christ who saved me from disaster would be delighted to have the opportunity to change others in like fashion.
I’m going with raw! However rest assured that I will not allow them to omit my conversion to Jesus Christ.
In the end that means to me that I’m opting to going with telling the truth as opposed to telling watered down lies.
Do you want to be free? Then tell the truth and stay faithful to it. Take a stand for Jesus. Do you pray before a board meeting? If someone mentions Jesus Christ in conversation, (like at a cocktail party), do you cringe and look around to see if anyone is watching?
That is not freedom . . .
John 8:32
“And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
March 3, 2014 – Click here to listen