“I Don’t Care”
Don’t set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let him tell you what to do. No one else should carry the title of ‘Father’; you have only one Father, and he’s in heaven.
––Matthew 23:9, msg
Maybe you saw the remake of the movie The Fugitive starring Harrison Ford as Dr. Kimble and Tommy Lee Jones as U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard. It’s an easy movie to like: innocent man gets the shaft in the courts and is wrongly convicted and sentenced to federal prison.
Kimble goes on the run, and a key chase takes place in a labyrinth of water tunnels surrounding a large dam. Kimble makes one wrong turn, and suddenly, the hunter and the hunted are face to face, standing at the edge of the ginormous dam.
It’s a desperate moment. You feel depressed thinking he’s been captured way too quickly, No! He can’t’ get caught yet! But it’s already over. Kimble looks down at the water falling hundreds of yards to the base of the concrete wall. It would mean certain death jumping from such a height. The eyes of both men lock on each other, and Dr. Kimble finally speaks.
“I didn’t kill my wife.”
The jaded lawman tilts his head and sardonically replies, “I don’t care.”
Tommy Lee Jones’s cynicism aside, “I don’t care” is a ratified declaration of our God’s-man constitution. We should have the same dogged determination, disdain, and offended sensibility when insecure voices within beg us to be a man pleaser over a God pleaser. There are some things we simply cannot afford to care about in light of our identity, our purpose, and our connection to Jesus Christ. We must stop wearing all the masks that get us “liked” by men at the risk or expense of grieving the Holy Spirit.
In the early church, the only apostle to escape violent death was John. All the rest––James, Philip, Matthew, James, Matthias, Andrew, Mark, Peter, Paul, Jude, Bartholomew, Thomas and Luke––went to their brutal deaths willingly and passionately. Their courage bred more courage.
That’s why it’s critically important that you gather around you a group of like-minded “I don’t care” God pleasers. We aren’t wired to go it alone—life is hard enough without solid, safe, godly friends. So get some and go after God’s best.
Father, thank You for Your Word and the example that it has shown me.