By Drake Hunter | Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice
When I was little, one of my favorite people ever was Grandma Ivy, still is. She wasn’t famous. She never stood behind a pulpit or wrote a book. But she was a superhero. During many of my toddler and elementary years, she was my guardian, my safe place, and my greatest teacher. Like so many grandmothers, she had a way of turning ordinary moments into lasting memories.
One of those memories was a simple nursery rhyme she taught me:
“There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile. He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile. He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse, and they all lived together in a little crooked house.”
Back then, I thought it was just a funny rhyme. I smiled because everything in the story seemed Wonderfully Weird, if you are familiar with my work. The man was crooked (character issues). The mile was crooked (life’s misleading journey). The money – sixpence – was crooked (his values and possessions). The style (his critical approach to overcoming obstacles). The cat (his choices), the mouse (results of those choices), and even the house were crooked (his world).
It has taken me nearly sixty years to realize the most remarkable part of the story isn’t that everything was crooked. It’s that nobody noticed. The crooked man never complained about the crooked road. The crooked cat seemed perfectly content chasing the crooked mouse. Everyone simply accepted the crooked life as normal. Perhaps that’s because when everything around you is crooked, crooked feels straight.
That observation may explain one of the most startling commands Jesus ever gave: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. (Matthew 5:44-46)“ At first glance, His words seem impossible. Surely there must be a limit. Surely there are people beyond redemption. Surely there are enemies who deserve our hatred. Yet Jesus never seemed nearly as interested in identifying enemies as we are. He was far more interested in redeeming them (recovering LIFE).
Over this past year, I had the privilege of leading and serving in front of and behind the scenes at the Rocky Mountain Voice Freedom Festival. It was a meaningful and impactful experience, one I’ll never forget. Thousands of people gathered with deep convictions, sincere beliefs, grateful hearts, and a genuine love for family, faith, and freedom. I met veterans, law enforcement officers, volunteers, vendors, pastors, entertainers, speakers, and families from every imaginable background. Some agreed with one another. Some certainly did not. As I went through the crowds, something unexpected happened inside me. I stopped seeing positions. I stopped seeing labels. I simply began seeing people—people carrying burdens I couldn’t see, people fighting battles I couldn’t understand, people longing to matter, people trying, in their own way, to make sense of a complicated world.
And my heart quietly whispered something I haven’t been able to shake since:
A ruined soul is a lost soul.
Notice I didn’t say an evil soul, an enemy’s soul, or someone else’s soul. I said a ruined soul.
For years, I’ve wondered what it really means to be “lost.” Most of us think of being lost as ending up in the wrong place. But perhaps that’s backward. We don’t arrive at the wrong destination because God wants us there. We arrive there because we have become disconnected from the life we were created to live.
Let’s think about it. When I lose my car keys, which I did more than several times at the festival, they don’t stop existing. When I misplace my wallet (thanks for returning my wallet, Tori), it doesn’t suddenly lose its value. When I can’t find my phone (It was in the restroom), it still works perfectly. It’s simply no longer where it’s supposed to be. Because it’s lost, it can no longer fulfill its purpose.
Could the same be true of us?
Perhaps a lost soul is one that has become disconnected from its Creator. Much like several children who were disconnected from their parts at the fest—not because God has abandoned it, but because it has slowly become absorbed in itself. It begins trusting its own wisdom above God’s. It mistakes independence for freedom and self-rule for life. It slowly forgets what it was created for. Like the crooked man, crooked or lost begins to feel normal.
I wonder if that’s why Jesus spent so much of his ministry with people everyone had written off. Tax collectors, religious leaders, fishermen, adulterers, Roman soldiers, political zealots, beggars, the wealthy, the forgotten, and the celebrated (much like the crowds at the fest). He looked at everyone and saw something others could not. He saw souls—not defeated ones, but souls to restore.
That’s why I believe loving your enemy is one of the most creative acts in the universe.
We usually think of creativity as painting a masterpiece, composing music, writing a novel, inventing new technology, or designing something beautiful according to the beholder. Jesus gives creativity an entirely different definition. Creativity is seeing what God sees before anyone else can. The world sees an enemy; Jesus sees a future brother. The world sees a failure; Jesus sees a disciple. The world sees a traitor; Jesus sees an apostle. The world sees a criminal hanging on a cross; Jesus sees a man who, before the day is over, will be with Him in paradise.
That is creativity.
It is the ability to imagine redemption where everyone else imagines defeat.
The world already knows how to hate. It knows how to retaliate. It knows how to expose. It knows how to cancel. It knows how to win arguments. Anyone can return insult for insult. Anyone can love people who already love them. Jesus introduces an entirely different strategy. He refuses to let someone’s worst moment become their permanent identity. That’s not weakness. That’s divine imagination or revelation. That’s holy creativity.
As I reflected on the Freedom Festival, I realized something that had little to do with principles, politics, or event pastime and everything to do with who we are becoming. Everywhere I looked, I saw passionate people—people who loved their country, people who loved freedom, people who loved truth, people who wanted to make a difference. Yet I also realized how easy it is for any of us—including me—to become so convinced that we’re defending God that we forget to love the people He created. It is entirely possible to be passionate about truth while becoming careless with people. Jesus never separated the two. Truth without love becomes a nasty and rude weapon. Love without truth becomes sappy, wild, or out of control. Jesus held both together perfectly.
Perhaps the greatest battlefield isn’t between political parties, denominations, ideologies, or cultures. Perhaps the greatest battlefield is the one within my own heart. Every time pride convinces me I’m always right, every time resentment becomes easier than forgiveness, every time I value winning more than loving, the walls of my own crooked house become a little more familiar. And the frightening thing is that I may not even notice, even though most everyone else does.
Maybe that’s why Jesus didn’t simply command us to love our enemies for their sake. He commanded it for ours. Nothing reveals more clearly whether my heart still belongs to God than how I treat someone who can offer me nothing in return.
Love is not pretending evil doesn’t exist. Love is refusing to let evil determine who we become. The cross proves that. While He was being mocked, rejected, beaten, and crucified, Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. (Luke 23:34).” He saw beyond the hatred, beyond the cruelty, beyond the blindness. He saw ruined souls, and that’s exactly why He came. To show us the Way (life’s Good journey), Truth (Good reality), Life (Good existence).
Perhaps the crooked man isn’t someone else. Perhaps, at one time or another, the crooked man has been every one of us.
The good news is this: Jesus doesn’t stand outside the crooked house throwing stones. He walks through the front door. He sits at the table. He calls us by name. Then, with extraordinary creativity and unimaginable love, He begins making crooked things straight.
Maybe that’s why Jesus could look at an enemy and see a neighbor, look at a sinner and see a saint in the making, and look at a cross and see a crown.
Only love can see that far.
Only love is that creative.
As always…God is here. God is able. God is good.
Pastor Drake
I’ll be continuing this conversation later this week on the Just Sayin’ podcast, where we’ll take a deeper look at The Creativety Weapon: Loving the Crooked Man.
Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so, we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.