Stubbornness

The U.S. Supreme Court weighs in on a small number of cases, and most of the cases have national implications—except in the strange case of Stuart Harrow.

The Department of Defense employee is before the Court to find out whether a missed email spells an end to his 11-year quest to get $3,000 of pay (and interest) he says was wrongly withheld during 2013 budget cuts that briefly forced him out of work.

His case would feel right at home in small-claims court. But in March of 2024, the nine justices of the highest court in the land heard oral arguments about whether the government should let him continue his fight for six days of back pay.

With the nine justices lined up on the bench, Justice Neil Gorsuch wondered how the issue had come to this. “Here we are in the Supreme Court of the United States over a $3,000 claim,” said Gorsuch. “I’m— I’m just wondering why the government’s making us do this.”

The legal answer trudges a decadelong path including a three-person federal board that couldn’t make a quorum for five years. There was a missed email to an abandoned account.

The human answer is that Harrow, 73, hasn’t given up. Largely representing himself, Harrow has seen his appeal be rejected by the Defense Department, an administrative law judge, and a federal board.

The case writing Harrow’s name in the annals of jurisprudence considers only whether that deadline is so inflexible that it would prevent his claim from ever getting its day in court. So, the Supreme Court will render a decision on something that might seem beneath it.

Possible Preaching Angles:

As Jesus would say, “Will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them?” (Luke 18:7)

When Galileo introduced the telescope as a tool to peer into the galaxies, his contemporaries did not believe him. Scoffing, they refused to even look through the device. Galileo sat alone with his telescope. He was the sole observer of the vastness of the cosmos. A single witness of galaxies beyond anything anyone had seen or imagined. Galileo had the stars to himself.

Undermining Aristotle’s previous explanations of the universe, Galileo published his own findings based on what he’d seen through the telescope. He painted a picture for the entire world through words, a display of the heavens scratched across bound pages. He wrote about mountains and craters on the moon, spots upon the sun, satellites orbiting Jupiter, and multitudes of stars never known to exist.

These were monumental discoveries that would shape future space explorations, but they fell on ears refusing to hear and eyes refusing to see. Galileo’s peers mocked him and his toy. Strictly adhering to Aristotle’s descriptions of the universe, they refused to believe anything contrary to what they had held to for so long.

On February 22, 1911, Gaston Hervieu climbed the Eiffel Tower to test a new parachute for pilots. He checked the wind, took a nervous breath, and began the test. His silk parachute filled with air, then sailed safely to the ground. Hervieu did not make the jump himself; he used a 160-pound test dummy. To one man this was an outrage. Franz Reichelt was an Austrian tailor who was developing a parachute of his own. He denounced Hervieu's use of a dummy as a "sham" and, one year later, on the morning of Sunday, February 4, 1912, arrived at the Eiffel Tower to conduct his own experiment.

As Reichelt posed for pictures he announced, "I am so convinced my device will work properly that I will jump myself." Gaston Hervieu pulled him aside and tried to stop him. Hervieu claimed there were technical reasons why Reichelt's parachute would not work. The two men had a heated discussion until, finally, Reichelt walked away.

Modern parachutes use 700 square feet of fabric and should be deployed only above 250 feet; Reichelt's parachute used less than 350 square feet of fabric, and he deployed it at 187 feet. He had neither the surface area nor the altitude needed to make a successful jump. Hervieu was not the only one who had told Reichelt that his parachute suit would not work. It had also been rejected by a team of experts who told him, "The surface of your device is too small. You will break your neck."

He not only ignored experts, he also ignored his own data. He tested his parachute using dummies, and they crashed. He tested his parachute by jumping thirty feet into a haystack, and he crashed. He tested his parachute by jumping twenty feet without a haystack, and he crashed and broke his leg. Instead of changing his invention, he clung to his bad idea in the face of all evidence and advice.

Reichelt fell for four seconds, accelerating constantly, until he hit the ground at sixty miles an hour, making a cloud of frost and dust and a dent six inches deep. He was killed on impact.

Residents of the state of Washington are no strangers to wildfires. However, even veterans of the fire-ridden west can become too comfortable with the blazes. Officials in Chelan County, WA report that even as one of the most vicious wildfires of the summer bore down on homes and businesses in Chelan, hundreds of local residents refused to seek safety. "We thought it was a little fire," said homeowner Norma Cervantes, who had ignored evacuation orders for the area. "[But] it started spreading and spreading and the wind got faster and faster …" What had begun only three days earlier as a seemingly insignificant flame had escalated to a raging, life-threatening conflagration, and those who remained behind like Cervantes found their boldness vanishing. "I don't know what was going through my mind," she said afterwards.

Possible Preaching Angle:

How similar is the result when we downplay the threat of sin in our lives. What initially seems like a harmless desire or thought can and will spread until it eventually consumes everything in its path.

On May 7, 1915, the R.M.S Lusitania, a British ocean liner, was struck by a torpedo from a German submarine. The ship sank in a matter of minutes, killing 1198 of the 1959 passengers aboard. In her book, Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy, author Diana Preston recorded the observations of one passenger, bookseller, Charles Lauriat:

As the ship was sinking and as Lauriat looked around to see who needed life jackets, he noticed that among the crowds now pouring on deck nearly everyone who passed by him that was wearing a life jacket had it on incorrectly." In his panic, one man had thrust one arm through an armhole and his head through the other. Others rushed past wearing them upside down. No one had read the "neat little signs" around the ship telling people how to put them on. Lauriat tried to help, but some thought he was trying to take their life jackets from them and fled in terror.

Preston continues: "Dead and drowning people were 'dotting the sea like seagulls.' Many bodies were floating upside down because people had put their life jackets on the wrong way up … so that their heads were pushed under the water."

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Help from God; Dependence; Trust; Surrender—In the same way, how often do we flee in terror in the presence of the God who is trying to save our lives? (2) Commandments; Bible; Obedience—How often do we ignore the "signs" in God's Word and live with our life jackets on the wrong way up?

In January 2013, Sabine Moreau, a 67-year-old Belgian woman, was driving to pick up a friend in Brussels, about 90 miles from her home. But based on the faulty directions she got from her GPS, she drove all the way to Croatia—nearly 1,000 miles away. The journey took the woman across five international borders. She stopped several times to get gas and take naps, but she kept pressing onward until she hit Zagreb, the capital of Croatia.

After a few days her son got worried and called the police, who located Sabine by following her bank statements. She told a Belgian reporter, "I was distracted, so I kept going. I saw all kinds of signs, first in French, then in German, and finally in Croatian, but I continued driving because I was distracted. When I passed Zagreb, I told myself I should turn around."

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Distractions; Spiritual Disciplines—This story shows how easily we get distracted in our walk with Christ and we need to practice spiritual disciplines; (2) Disobedience; Repentance—This is a great illustration of the need for repentance, which of course literally means "to turn around."

In 1988 George H.W. Bush was elected President of the United States, but in 1987 the frontrunner for the Democrats was a senator from Colorado named Gary Hart. After rumors surfaced about extramarital affairs, Hart famously dared reporters to follow him, so they did. Two reporters from The Miami Herald saw a young woman leaving Hart's Washington, D.C. townhouse on the evening of May 2nd. The woman was 29-year-old Donna Rice. A few days later the media revealed that Hart had spent a night in a yacht called the Monkey Business with Ms. Rice. Pictures of Rice sitting on Hart's lap made front-page news around the nation.

Senator Hart's presidential bid imploded, but whatever happened to Donna Rice? In 2013 she explained how she had wandered from and returned to her faith in Christ:

Toward the end of my college career, I started making these little left hand turns. Before long I was dating some non-Christian guys and thought, "That's not a big deal." It's hard to believe how you can go from here to there—you don't go there overnight, you go there by little wrong choices. I saw Hart only twice, but … God was trying to get my attention prior to that, and it took an international sex scandal because I was stubborn. God will track you down. He will let things happen, the natural consequences of our choices.

Rice began her journey back to the Lord, living under the media's radar for seven years, caring for a disabled woman, getting married, and then becoming president of Enough Is Enough. Now the media seeks out Donna Rice Hughes not for her sexual scandals but for her expertise in promoting internet safety and sexual wholeness. Donna said, "Oddly, I was Miss Scandal Queen 1987 and now I'm seen as this voice of decency and morality. That's a God thing."

Editor’s Note: This ministry is still going strong in 2024. You can view the website here

In many parts of the developing world, aid workers have often struggled to get people clean, disease-free drinking water. Surprisingly, it hasn't always been easy. For a while, aid workers helped people get clean water by digging wells. But by the time people got the water into their homes it was often still contaminated. The next step involved adding a tiny bit of chlorine, which keeps water free of germs for days. So aid workers started trying to get people to use chlorine. In Kenya today, you can buy little bottles of chlorine, made just for purifying water, for pennies. Problem solved? Unfortunately, surveys show that only a small percentage of people buy the chlorine, even though it's cheap and widely available.

So the next step to help rural areas get clean water involved putting chlorine right next to the spring or well. It's basically an upside-down bottle with a dispenser that releases chlorine into the containers people use to carry water. A tiny bit is enough for 20 liters of water. It's simple and it's free.

But it turns out that only 40 percent of people who have access to the dispensers actually use them. Some people don't like the taste; some people don't believe in it. The American aid workers sometimes don't use the dispensers either. One aid worker said, "Sometimes you're in a rush, or you're thinking about something else and you just don't do it. I've had malaria five times now. I have a bed net hanging above my bed, and I don't use it."

What's the real problem? The article zeroed in on one issue—human nature. In other words, people from Nairobi, Kenya to New York City often know what's right but we don't do it. Interestingly, the NPR blog that reported this story was titled "A Surprising Barrier to Clean Water: Human Nature."

Perhaps you've heard the phrase "turn a blind eye," which means to ignore undesirable information. The saying comes from a 19th century British naval battle. On April 2, 1801, during the Battle of Copenhagen, the British fleet was attacking the combined navies of Denmark and Norway. Three British ships ran aground, so the admiral, Hyde Parker, decided that the fire of battle was "too hot for Nelson to oppose." So Parker sent an order, through signal flags, that the younger admiral Horatio Nelson should "Discontinue Action" and withdraw.

When Nelson heard his own signalman relay the order, he pretended not to hear him. Mesmerized by the thrill of battle, Nelson had no intention of obeying the order. He turned to his captain and said, "This day may be the last for us at any moment," even as a Danish cannonball struck his ship's mainmast, scattering splinters all around him. This was typical of Nelson's stubborn and aggressive approach to war. In fact, he'd already lost sight in his right eye in a previous battle. So when he pressed again to respond to Parker's order, Nelson told his flag captain Thomas Foley, "You know, Foley, I only have one eye—I have the right to be blind sometimes," and then Nelson held up his telescope to his right eye and said, "I really do not see the signal!"

Sometimes we are all like Nelson, with one good eye and one blind eye, and when an order comes through from God, we hold up the telescope to the blind eye. As a result, we willfully ignore the leading of the Holy Spirit.

In the spring of 1867, George Custer and his regiment were on a scouting expedition on the plains of Kansas. Suddenly Custer's English greyhounds, his constant companions, began to chase some antelope over a distant hill. In spite of himself, Custer could not resist joining the chase. It was not long before the general, his horse, and his pack of dogs had left his regiment far behind.

He quickly forgot his men and his mission when he crested the first hill and saw his first buffalo: an enormous, shaggy bull. He put the spurs to his horse's sides and began the chase. As the horse gained on the massive buffalo, Custer yelled with excitement. An avid hunter, he had to bring this trophy home. He drew his pearl-handled pistol. But as he came alongside the thundering beast and shoved the barrel into its thick shaggy side, Custer paused. Feeling the ground shake, hearing the ragged breathing of both animals side by side, he pulled the pistol back, to "prolong the enjoyment of the chase."

After several minutes, Custer decided it was time for the kill. Again, He shoved the pistol into the side of the buffalo. But, as if sensing Custer's intentions, the buffalo abruptly turned toward the horse. The horse veered away from the buffalo's horns, and when Custer tried to grab the reins with both hands, his finger accidentally fired a bullet into his own horse's head, killing it instantly. Custer was thrown to the ground and then struggled quickly to his feet to face the animal that had been his prey only seconds before. Instead of charging, the buffalo stared at the strange, foolish man and walked off.

Horseless and alone, Custer began the long, dangerous walk back to his regiment. In less than a decade, this same recklessness and arrogance would lead the General and his men to their death on a flat-topped hill next to a river called the Little Bighorn.

Michelangelo's final work was called Rondanini Pietà, on which he worked for ten years. Giorgio Vasari, a contemporary of Michelangelo, wrote that Michelangelo "ended up breaking the block [for this sculpture], probably because [it] was full of impurities and so hard that sparks flew from under his chisel." The sculpture was rescued by a servant and survives to this day. It bears the marks of Michelangelo's chisel, but none of the beauty of his earlier work Pietà.

What happened? Another sculptor named Lorenzo Dominguez once summarized the dilemma and unpredictability of working with stone. He said, "The stone wants to be stone; the artist wants it to be art."

The same dilemma exists for those of us who are the work of God's hands. In an attempt to free the image of Christ that's within us, God begins chipping away everything that isn't Jesus. The stone of our lives either submits to the chipping or it resists.

If it submits, features of the Savior begin to emerge from our life. If it submits long enough, the Savior himself emerges. If, however, it resists, and continues to resist, there will come a day when God will let the stone be stone.

C. S. Lewis said as much when he stated that there are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "Okay, go ahead and have it your way."

Possible Preaching Angles: You can use this story to either talk about disobedience and rebellion in the life of the Christian or to illustrate the gift of human free will we can use to reject God and end up in hell.

I've imagined this scene in my head: I'm playing baseball with Jesus. The stands are full of fans, but out there on the field it's just him and me. I'm the pitcher. Jesus is the catcher, behind home plate. He settles into his crouch, ready to play, and I look for his signals—simple commands. What pitch will he want me to throw? I wait in anticipation, but also with one eye on the crowd. What will they think of me?

He signals a fastball.

I think for a moment and shake my head—no, not a fastball.

Next he signals a slider.

This time I look toward my teammates in the dugout for guidance. Then I glance up at the fans. No, I'm not comfortable with that one either.

He gives me yet a third signal.

No, not today, thank you!

Then I imagine Jesus silently and slowly withdrawing his signaling hand back into his mitt. There's a deep disappointment in his eyes. He's decided to let me throw whatever I want. So I do—and then I wonder why there's just no team spirit anymore!

Has Jesus stopped giving you signals?

I doubt it. He never stops speaking to his children. Is there a signal God's been trying to give you, even as you read this sentence, that you've ignored because you just don't want to obey?

The controversial American author Gore Vidal had a clear and simple solution for dealing with conflicts. He said, "There is not one human problem that could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise."

In 1875 a British poet named William Ernest Henley published a short poem that expressed one way to cope with life's circumstances. The poem, called "Invictus," ended with these famous lines: "I am the master of my fate / I am the captain of my soul."

In popular culture, those last two lines usually represent some kind of heroic and self-sufficient stand against evil and injustice without submitting to God. The journalist Danniel Hannan called the poem "a final and terrible act of defiance. The Horror might indeed have awaited [Henley], but he would go there on his own terms, leaving the spittle sliding down his Maker's face."

For over a hundred years, Henley's poem has inspired many people. In the 1980s, the poem encouraged former South African president Nelson Mandala throughout the dark days of his imprisonment. Years later, Clint Eastwood used it as the title for his popular film about the South African rugby team.

Sadly, it was also a great influence on Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who was responsible for the deaths of 168 men, women, and children, and the injuries of 800 more. He scribbled out the words of "Invictus" and handed it to authorities as his last words before his execution.

Sixteen years after Henley first published "Invictus," the British preacher Charles Spurgeon offered another philosophy of life. On June 7, 1891, in the closing words of his final sermon, Spurgeon urged people to submit to a better "Captain" for our soul. Spurgeon said:

Every [person] must serve somebody: we have no choice as to that fact. Those who have no master are slaves to themselves. Depend upon it, you will either serve Satan or Christ. Either self or the Savior. You will find sin, self, Satan, and the world to be hard masters; but if you wear the uniform of Christ, you will find him so meek and lowly of heart that you will find rest unto your souls …. If you could see our Captain, you would go down on your knees and beg him to let you enter the ranks of those who follow him. It is heaven to serve Jesus.

An article from the magazine Fast Company began with the following paragraph:

Change or Die. What if you were given that choice? What if a well-informed, trusted authority figure said you had to make difficult and enduring changes in the way you think and act? If you didn't, your time would end soon—a lot sooner than it had to. Could you change when change really mattered? When it mattered most?

According to the article, the odds are nine to one that you will not change—even in the face of certain death. The author based that statistic on a well-known study by Dr. Edward Miller, the dean of the medical school and CEO of the hospital at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Miller studied patients whose heart disease was so severe that they had to undergo bypass surgery, a traumatic and expensive procedure that can cost more than $100,000 if complications arise. About 600,000 people have bypasses every year in the United States, and 1.3 million heart patients have angioplasties. The procedures temporarily relieve chest pains but rarely prevent heart attacks or prolong lives. Around half of the time, the bypass grafts clog up in a few years; the angioplasties, in a few months.

The causes of this so-called restenosis are complex. It's sometimes a reaction to the trauma of the surgery itself. But many patients could avoid the return of pain and the need to repeat the surgery—not to mention alter the course of their disease before it kills them—by switching to healthier lifestyles. Yet very few do. Dr. Miller summarized his research on patients' inability or unwillingness to change their lives:

If you look at people after coronary-artery bypass grafting two years later, 90 percent of them have not changed their lifestyle. And that's been studied over and over and over again. And so we're missing some link in there. Even though they know they have a very bad disease and they know they should change their lifestyle, for whatever reason, they can't.

Ego builds a cardboard fortress that humility must, every day, tear down.

The authors of the book Mistakes Were Made (but not by me) argue that our tendency to justify our actions is more powerful and deceptive than an explicit lie. They write:

[Self-justification] allows people to convince themselves that what they did was the best thing they could have done. In fact, come to think of it, it was the right thing. "There was nothing else I could have done." "Actually, it was a brilliant solution to the problem." "I was doing the best for the nation." "Those [jerks] deserved what they got." "I'm entitled."

[For example], when researchers ask husbands and wives what percentage of the housework they do, the wives say, "Are you kidding? I do almost everything, at least 90 percent." And the husbands say, "I do a lot, about 40 percent." Although the specific numbers differ from couple to couple, the total always exceeds 100 percent by a significant margin. It's tempting to conclude that one spouse is lying, but it is more likely that each is remembering in a way that enhances his or her contribution.

Over time, as the self-serving distortions of memory kick in … we come to believe our own lies, little by little. We know we did something wrong, but we gradually begin to think that it wasn't our fault, and after all, the situation was complex. We start underestimating our own responsibility, whittling away at it until it is a mere shadow of its former hulking self.

In his article titled "Unreasonable Doubt," Jim Spiegel quotes two contemporary philosophers who have resisted belief in God for personal and not just intellectual reasons. Thomas Nagel, an atheist who authored a popular introduction to philosophy titled What Does It All Mean? wrote: "I want atheism to be true … It isn't just that I don't believe in God, and, naturally, hope that I'm right about my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that."

The 20th-century ethics philosopher Mortimer Adler (who was baptized quietly at age 81) confessed to rejecting religious commitment for most of his life because it "would require a radical change in my way of life, a basic alteration in the direction of my day-to-day choices as well as in the ultimate objectives to be sought or hoped for …. The simple truth of the matter is that I did not wish to live up to being a genuinely religious person."

In his book Resolving Everyday Conflict, Ken Sande tells about observing a visually impaired woman who resisted the repeated warnings of her loyal and protective guide dog:

One day during my morning run I noticed a blind woman walking on the other side of the street with her Seeing Eye dog, a beautiful golden retriever. As I was about to pass them, I noticed a car blocking a driveway a few paces ahead of them. At that moment the dog paused and gently pressed his shoulder against the woman's leg, signaling her to turn aside so they could get around the car.

I'm sure she normally followed his lead, but that day she didn't seem to trust him. She had probably walked this route many times before and knew this was not the normal place to make a turn. Whatever the cause, she wouldn't move to the side and instead gave him the signal to move ahead. He again pressed his shoulder against her leg, trying to guide her on a safe path. She angrily ordered [the dog] to go forward. When he again declined, her temper flared.

I was about to speak up … when the dog once more put his shoulder gently against her leg. Sure enough, she kicked him …. And then she impulsively stepped forward—and bumped square into a car. Reaching out to feel the shape in front of her, she immediately realized what had happened. Dropping to her knees, she threw her arms around the dog, and spoke sobbing words into his ear.