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“Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name: the righteous shall compass me about; for thou shalt deal bountifully with me.” Psalm 142:7 KJV
Have you ever worked so hard on doing something right only to have really bad results come from it? You know your heart is in the right place, but convincing others that is the case just doesn’t seem to happen. Your “good” efforts even get turned against you.
Lawrence Martin Jenco was born on November 27, 1934 in Joliet, Illinois. He attended parish school there and would become a priest in the Catholic Church. He was known as Father Marty. He wanted to be so much like Jesus, so he left the comforts of the American lifestyle and went to a far off land to serve as the director of the Catholic Relief Services in a little city that sits on the Mediterranean Sea. One of the goals of the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is helping people in developmental countries break the cycle of poverty. This help is provided based on need, not race, creed or nationality.
Our nation had fallen on hard times from the world opinion viewpoint. He was like the cowboy with the white hat and a pistol in his holster ready to let the bad guys have it. At first, the bad guys were scared, but they soon learned his weakness and they exploited it. Little by little they kept adding to his misery. Soon, many of the town folks started questioning whether he deserved that white hat after all.
There was a little city in eastern Macedonia established by King Philip II of Macedon in 356 BC. The object of founding the city was to “take control of the neighboring gold mines and to establish a garrison at a strategic passage.” The city was abandoned in the 14th century after the Ottoman conquest.
He was a man whose life had been completely touched by God. Like many who first experience this conversion, he was very excited. He began looking for places to go, so he could tell them the Good News he had in his heart. Roadblock after roadblock seem to stop his path. Finally, one night he tried to get a good night’s sleep. He had a dream. In this dream he heard the cry of a man from the distant shores of Macedonia calling him to come over. He now knew where he should go preach. He gathered his companions and off to Macedonia they headed.
In 1951 Mohammad Mosaddegh became prime minister in free democratic elections. He was very popular in his country. He became very upset with the oil companies in his country and he decided to nationalized them, or take them away from their owners and make them government owned. This upset Britain and the United States. They organized a coup and disposed of Mosaddegh. In his place they installed Mohammad-Reza Shah Pahlavi. Pahlavi was very rigid and even arrested religious leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Khomeini was jailed eighteen months before he was sent into exile. Pahlavi’s country experienced a severe economic downturn in the 1970’s and his countrymen got really upset. Khomeini returned and before you knew it, it was Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, who was headed to exile. On November 4, 1979, Khomeini’s Iranian Revolution stormed the American Embassy and took 52 Americans hostage.
On the day these hostages were finally released, the man with the white hat became President of the United States. Very few Americans were happy with Iran at this point. His tough, cowboy image might have helped a little in the intimidation battle, but it wasn’t long before other radical Islamic groups took up that same hostage taking strategy.
On January 8, 1985, Father Marty, who was the head of the US-based Catholic Relief Services , was taken hostage by six heavily armed gunmen in west Beirut, Lebanon. He was the sixth American taken hostage in ten months in west Beirut and there would be others. Now the brave cowboy President was on the other side of the fence trying to free those Americans who were being held against their will.
Bud McFarlane, the President’s National Security Advisor, came to visit him with an offer Israel had presented him. Bud said there was a group in Iran who were preparing for the day Khomeini would die. Khomeini was in very poor health and near death. This group wanted to overthrow the government and have friendlier relations with the US. In addition, they had contacts with those who were holding the Americans hostage. To prepare for that day, however, they needed weapons. The President said that we could not deal with a ransom situation. Bud offered the suggestion, “What if we sell the weapons to Israel and Israel sells them to this group?” Bud thought it was a win-win situation. After much reluctance, the President agreed to a trial test. Sure enough one of the hostages was freed. The cooperation and results became less and less frequent and eventually the President came to believe this group might have even been set up by the Islamic Revolution to get more arms.
Paul, Silas and others with him headed to Philippi in eastern Macedonia. While he was there he would cast out an evil spirit in a woman, who was also a slave. This lady used these skills, from the evil spirit, to be a fortune teller. Her owner made quite a bit of money with her “talent.” In casting out the demon, Paul also ended her “career” as a fortune teller. The owner was really mad and he had Paul thrown into prison. Although Paul did the right thing, the side of justice did not see it that way.
When Father Marty was finally released, he visited President Ronald Reagan at the White House. He did not know about all the efforts going into finding a release for him. He told President Reagan: “Mr. President, there were times I did not have kind and charitable thoughts about my government, my Servite order, my church and the C.R.S. I have asked God’s forgiveness for these sinful [thoughts] and ask your forgiveness, too.”
Some of President Reagan’s advisors took things a step farther, he said without his knowledge. They arranged that the profits from those arm sales be diverted to a group in Nicaragua called the Contras. President Reagan was always worried about the Communist getting a foothold into Latin American and he believed these over-zealous staff members might have decided to act on their own to promote this additional cause. He refused to ever pardon them because he believed what they did was wrong. He said it was always a heavy load because he felt most Americans didn’t believe he wasn’t involved. Although he believed he did the right thing, the side of opinion did not see it that way.
Often we throw our hearts into things believing they are guiding us in the right direction. It very well may be that it is the right direction, but the results don’t make us feel very good. It is very important to realize and open our ears to God to hear if we are really in the right place.
Prayer: Dear Mighty Father, When my heart thinks it’s right, please let it check with you first. If it is not right, please give me the courage to change it. Amen.
