{"id":398,"date":"2011-10-25T15:18:41","date_gmt":"2011-10-25T15:18:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/?p=398"},"modified":"2011-10-25T15:18:41","modified_gmt":"2011-10-25T15:18:41","slug":"dont-be-the-pig-that-stomps-on-pearls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/?p=398","title":{"rendered":"Don&rsquo;t Be the Pig that Stomps on Pearls"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font size=\"3\"><em>&#8220;Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet.\u201d<\/em> \u2013 Jesus<\/font><\/p>\n<p>Two weeks ago, I was out at beautiful Lake Tanglewood to do a wedding. I had a little down time, so I sat down and read a blog post of someone\u2019s on my smart phone. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/image.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 2px 2px 2px 3px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px\" title=\"image\" border=\"0\" alt=\"image\" align=\"right\" src=\"http:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/image_thumb.png\" width=\"244\" height=\"184\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This post was full of profound point after profound point. I came across a monumentally significant and timely thought that has the potential of not only transforming my life for good, but was witty and universal enough to be useful for just about everyone I ever get into spiritual conversation with. <\/p>\n<p>Want me to tell you what it was?<\/p>\n<p>I wish I could. I\u2019ve forgotten it.<\/p>\n<p>This happens to me all the time. I don\u2019t know exactly what to credit it to, but I have a rich life of getting to hear and have thoughts like this all of the time. I think it is fair to say that my life is saturated with them. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I spend a lot of time in the Bible, for instance, most especially prioritizing Jesus.\n<li>Additionally, I have stacks of books that I invest in, recommendations from folks who\u2019s lives have earned my admiration. And these people are <em>legion<\/em>, so I have many books they say helped make them admirable.\n<li>I get profound, life-changing wisdom in my inbox every single day, so much that if I read them all, I would have time for little else (and these are the ones I signed up for and have proven themselves worthwhile, let alone all the others that come uninvited, equally worthy, I\u2019m sure, but I just don\u2019t read or watch unless I\u2019m so overwhelmed that I do it just to feel like I accomplished something).\n<li>On top of this, I am in some thickly rich relationships with several small groups (a men\u2019s group, a couples\/family group, our church staff, our church\u2019s elders and ministers) that have AS THEIR POINT the idea that we need to saturate ourselves in the wisdom of God and in each other\u2019s lives in a way that we connect the two.\n<li>I go to a movie almost every week on date night with my wife, and we have honed our skill at picking movies with profound meaning (and then finding meaning in them even when they don\u2019t)\n<li>This doesn\u2019t even count my wife (who has a few small groups of her own), and my kids (who are teaching me every day if I will pay attention).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Pearls! Pearls! Pearls! I\u2019m drowning in them.<\/p>\n<p>But I have forgotten and lost (hear: \u201ctrampled on\u201d) more great pearls than I will ever remember, and let\u2019s save me from humiliation by not mentioning how few I have effectively incorporated into my being and lived out.<\/p>\n<p>It makes me sick to think about it.<\/p>\n<p>Back to Lake Tanglewood: when I read the profound, timely, and life-changing thought, I remember looking up at the Lake below me, and at a spot down there right by it that looked both accessible and comfortable (not to mention beautiful), and I thought,<em> \u201cI should go down there right now and just dwell on this sentence. I should visualize how it has and can be expressed, and use my imagination to script a fairy-tale future for myself that incorporated and utilized it\u2019s wisdom. I should do that right now\u2026or I\u2019ll forget it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I did not choose the former. And sure enough, it is forgotten.<\/p>\n<p>With all my might, let me discourage you from doing that.  <\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m all about being a life-long leaner and stuff, but instead of filling your mind with 100\u2019s of great thoughts, hoping that \u201csomething good will happen\u201d by letting them pass through like wind does a screen door, pick one. Take it home, or out to a beautiful place, and dwell on it. Give it all over your creative energy\u2026every last drop\u2026and let it transform from a wise saying to an new action or \u201cway\u201d in you. <\/p>\n<p>This will change you, and the world, more than all the great thoughts and books and quotes and readings and scriptures that pass through your minds all put together.<\/p>\n<p>Ironically, an email from a friend of mine in Houston intrigued me enough to <a href=\"http:\/\/newsletter.simpletruths.com\/a\/hBOoV-vB8PINaB8eErANshd4cKD\/movie\">watch this 3 minute video<\/a>, and it is the perfect example of what I mean. <\/p>\n<p>Johnny was no pig. He took the pearl like no one else, and he changed himself and the world.<\/p>\n<p>Please! Pick a pearl!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet.\u201d \u2013 Jesus Two weeks ago, I was out at beautiful Lake Tanglewood to do a wedding. I had a little down time, so I sat down and read a blog post [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,4,10,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beauty","category-discipleship","category-prayer","category-the-best-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pO6nf-6q","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}