Hey.... fresh out of the "blogger gate" let's get something established -- On the left is a pic designed by my man Jeff Whelan (http://www.jeffwhelan.com/). Jeff is a pro-illustrator and has done some "bad to da' bone" work for Nascar, ESPN, etc.
As his pastor, he hooked me up with a pic that was needed for the Father's Day edition of ESPN magazine. Of course....I had the time. I sat on the bench in half of all of my sporting career as a youngin' in Carolina. I was delighted to make it ESPN in my forties.
It was a shot of a light-weight "peel off" jock suit ....gone with the snatching of the velcro. Underneath, reveals the man who needed to remain dressed to kill! Maybe he had a lunch appointment and didn't have the time to dress down. Nonetheless, the idea is that the businessman could leave the casual and return to his desk with a simple "peel off". Sounds quite easy don't it? Well it is when it comes to velcro jock suits....but not so with powerful socialized behaviours and attitudes picked up along this journey of life.
I came to the conclusion a loooonnnnng time ago that there are some things that are just deeply engrained in us. Prejudice is one of those bad dogs! It runs deep. As a young man (when it came to African Americans), I remember being taught to "treat them nice, but don't mix with'em". I remember being told to never call a black man by "Mr."....but to call him "Uncle". I never realized just how deep that stuff ran until I became a man; an adult who was entrusted with building the Lord's church.
Everything was okay until a little girl walked in the door of our church who was, in our perspective, "the wrong color". I did the thing that I was socialized to do. I took a church leader to the house and told them to never bring her back to the house of God again. I was a believer, an ordained minister, and a bible-college graduate who had some stuff that ONLY the Lord Jesus could "peel off". It's an ugly suit. It's called prejudice. I wear it no more! Glory to God!
Paul said in Galatians 3: 26-28...."You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."
*You can read the whole story in Wallace's book, "All Dressed Up and No Place to Go."
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