Thankful Thursday: We All Stand Forgiven

“He can turn this test into a tes­ti­mony;
He can turn this mess into a message.”

Rev. Tim Storey,
Spir­i­tual Adviser to Duane “Dog the Bounty Hunter” Chapman

But does that mean that his tele­vi­sion series can or should go back on the air?
That’s the ques­tion that A&E exec­u­tives have not yet answered.

The Good News today is that Dog, like the rest of us, is for­given. Whether or not the television-watching pub­lic for­gives, for­gets, and is will­ing to tune back in is, in the long run, of no import. If Dog really under­stands why his behav­ior was com­pletely, utterly wrong, and totally with­out jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, — and repents — he will stand for­given. In the eyes of the Sav­ior who made the ulti­mate sac­ri­fice so that we never have to, the slate will be wiped clean. Forever.

Going through the motions doesn’t please you,
a flaw­less per­for­mance is noth­ing to you.
I learned God-worship
when my pride was shat­tered.
Heart-shattered lives ready for love
don’t for a moment escape God’s notice.

Psalm 51:16–17
The Message

If you saw Dog on Han­nity and Combes last night or Larry King’s show this evening, you saw a bro­ken man. Gone is the swag­ger, the supreme self-confidence, the arro­gance. The trade­mark Dog demeanor has been replaced with the look of a fright­ened lit­tle puppy star­ing at you through the wire cage at your local ani­mal shel­ter, hop­ing you’ll take him home with you. Dog wiped away tears as he strug­gled to explain his rep­re­hen­si­ble behav­ior: “I thought that I was cool enough in the black world to be able to use that word as a brother to a brother. I’m not. I didn’t really know until three or four days ago what that meant to black people.”

What?

Dog’s face is lined by years of hard liv­ing, includ­ing a prison stint, and the rig­ors of rais­ing 12 chil­dren, as well as bury­ing at least one of them. In all that liv­ing, he never devel­oped an under­stand­ing about what the single-most egre­giously hurt­ful racial epi­thet meant to its tar­gets? Does he really think any­one is going to believe that?

Is is just a coin­ci­dence that his spir­i­tual adviser is an African-American min­is­ter or is Tim Storey’s pres­ence next to Dog across the desk from Larry King a shrewdly cal­cu­lated pub­lic rela­tions maneuver?

My sus­pi­cious nature says it is prob­a­bly the latter.

But the Bible tells me to have a gen­er­ous and for­giv­ing spirit, mod­eled after the spirit of the One I follow.

Since God has so gen­er­ously let us in on what he is doing, we’re not about to throw up our hands and walk off the job just because we run into occa­sional hard times. We refuse to wear masks and play games. We don’t maneu­ver and manip­u­late behind the scenes. And we don’t twist God’s Word to suit our­selves. Rather, we keep every­thing we do and say out in the open, the whole truth on dis­play, so that those who want to can see and judge for them­selves in the pres­ence of God.

2 Corinthi­ans 4:1–2

We have all had “Dog moments.” We have all done and said things we regret. We’ve all hurt — unin­ten­tion­ally — some­one else with our harsh words, unkind thoughts, self­ish­ness. We’ve all been embar­rassed, humil­i­ated, hum­bled by our own shortcomings.

We may not have had those expe­ri­ences with the whole coun­try watch­ing, but the mag­ni­tude of our fail­ings has been just as sig­nif­i­cant within our own fam­i­lies and neighborhoods.

It is not my place to judge Dog’s spirit or beliefs. It is not for me to say whether or not he has a truly con­trite heart, hum­ble spirit, and sin­cere desire never to com­mit the same sins again.

I am thank­ful today that, like Dog, I claim and cling to the for­give­ness that is so freely given to those who ask for it. Whether or not Dog gets his fame, tele­vi­sion audi­ence, and finan­cial riches back within his grasp, he can, like other believ­ers, know the peace that passes under­stand­ing by falling on his knees, repent­ing, and claim­ing the promises set forth in the Gospels. Tele­vi­sion fame is fleet­ing. Sal­va­tion is eternal.

Dog truly can turn this débâ­cle into a mes­sage and min­istry of hope, love, and atone­ment. He can make his life a liv­ing tes­ta­ment to the power of faith. Will he?

Will I? Will you?

So we’re not giv­ing up. How could we! Even though on the out­side it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is mak­ing new life, not a day goes by with­out his unfold­ing grace. These hard times are small pota­toes com­pared to the com­ing good times, the lav­ish cel­e­bra­tion pre­pared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomor­row. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.

2 Corinthi­ans 4:16–18

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