I need a reason to stop doing this, please!

Chet Gallagher
originally posted 18 August 2009 at 04:25 on Facebook

It’s a Chinese proverb, apparently: “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, ‘teach.” This is not a slam against teachers anymore than it is to say that the only ones who “really” teach are those who “do.”

I’m in a dilemma: I don’t wanna “do.” I wanna teach. I wanna write. I really want to inspire, challenge and just go about “provoking others to love AND do good works” just like the Bible says I should do in Hebrews 10:24. Wouldn’t just being provocative be enough? Some good must be found in simply speaking the truth in love. I’m not afraid to do that either. Though honestly, I often find myself speaking a lot of truth but with little love. I could use some prayer there, for sure.

Last week I was leaving the parking lot of Planned Parenthood after dropping off a copy of “Maafa 21 Black Genocide in the 21st Century” at a local coffee shop for the owner to view. As I was preparing to exit I pulled beside a Las Vegas Motorcycle cop who was also waiting for the traffic to clear. The air conditioner in my 1996 GMC van hasn’t been working so I had the driver’s window down. Untypically for me, I said to the cop, “Hey, I used to do that! My ‘P Number’ (police personnel ID) was 1822 and my call sign was Tom 37.” “Really, what’s your name?” He asked. Usually when a Las Vegas cop asks me this question I would try to change the subject, but today I answered him, “Chet Gallagher.” His response surprised me. “Hey, I know you. You’re a legend.” I think I said, “Well, actually legends don’t amount to much.” He smiled and just said, “Be safe,” as I pulled onto the roadway. “Be safe?” I thought. “Yeah, why can’t I just do that, just be safe and not be doing this?”

The next morning I was in the Word and was thinking about the encounter with the friendly motor cop. Legend, huh? I thought he probably had seen the video of my arrest while on duty in front of the abortion mill 20 years ago. After all, it was as part of a class they used to teach for several years in the police academy. That’s when the Spirit of God started “provoking” me. I believe I heard Him say, “Chet, listen, it doesn’t matter what people think you did for me. All that matters is what I know you will do for me after today.”

You might think I’d be able to pull out a long list of all the prolife, evangelistic, courageous deeds I’d done up to this week, but no. All I wanted to do at that point was find just one, the one right excuse not to do anything “more.” Can anybody help me here?

I want someone to give me an excuse to teach, not give me more reasons to do. “Lord, can I borrow one, somewhere? Is there someone, “somewhere out there” who has an excuse to share with me? It must be good, though. I’ve been trying to use several over the years. These days, though, not just any excuse seems to do. “Do.” There’s that word again. Tonight I read a pretty good speech online by a Catholic bishop talking to pro-lifers at a CPC fundraiser. He said some good things, too. One was: “Do the truth in love.”

Humph. You’d think a Catholic bishop could get the scripture right: Ephesians 4:15 says to “Speak” the truth in love.” Bishop it doesn’t say “Do” the truth in love. So my speaking the truth in love should be more than enough right? I can preach, I can write and I can teach! That would be sufficient scripturally speaking! By just speaking the truth in love, I could be excused from really going and doing anything else…wouldn’t I?

“Ah, there’s the rub” for I am really without excuse. I am so convicted for not going when I said (once?) “Here am I, Lord send me!” His answer to me was the same words to Jeremiah. The New Living Translation of Jeremiah 1:17, are compelling: “Get up and get dressed. Go out, and tell them whatever I tell you to say. Do not be afraid of them, or I will make you look foolish in front of them.”
Honestly, I’d grasp any good reason that would not trickle like water down my wrists like it did those of Pontius Pilot’s. Wash my hands of innocent blood? Just how does one who knows do that? Still, some others seem to get away with that, God, so why not me? Why do I have to go to those places and tell them “whatever You tell me to say?” (Newsflash, God: I don’t want to “Get up!” “Get dressed!” or “Go out!”)

Can’t anybody help me here? (“He’p the boy! Somebody he’p him!” )

Last week, while holding a graphic Malachi sign at the most notorious murder mill in “Sin City,” a young father literally pleaded, actually he angrily begged me to stop talking to him. He must have asked me to stop speaking to him six or seven times. He said, “I don’t want you talking to me about this. I already have 2 children.” I told him, “No, Dad, you have three!” Now he was about to murder his youngest. He did, too. He took her inside ignoring the words the love of Christ had compelled me to speak to him outside that abortion “clinic.” I was sick inside and I still am today. Honestly, I don’t ever want to have to go through that again… but it wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about him, either. It was only in some ways about his baby, but in every way it was all about my being there for Jesus and the least of His.

So…I guess if you have an excuse that works for you and one that might keep me from feeling compelled to “get up, get dressed and go out” to the murder mills, maybe it would be best to just keep it to yourself, after all. “Use it or lose it” they say…and, hey, if you’ve got some excuse that seems to be working for you, I wouldn’t want you to lose it by passing it on to me…unless of course, scripturally speaking, it’s a good one?