FAILURE...TO COMMUNICATE

Hello friends and neighbors...how's your communication skills? As I am writing this Rambling...I am listening to the Theme to the movie Cool Hand Luke. A very soothing, calming, picking of the guitar with a wave of strings drawing you into a peaceful setting that was anything but peaceful.

In 1967 there was a movie released that quickly became one of my favorite movies.. by the name of COOL HAND LUKE starring Paul Newman. It is a movie about conformity and submitting to the system personified in the character of Lucas Jackson. It opens with Lucas cutting the heads off of parking meters on one drunken night. He was arrested...and when asked why he did such a thing...his answer was...
"Small town, not much to do in the evening. Mostly just evening up scores." He was sent to a prison camp...where it was expected that he would conform...one way or the other.

The Warden/Captain was played by a wonderful character actor named Strother Martin. He has been in many T.V. shows and movies including.. the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

In this one he played a southern warden of the prison camp...who was in charge of taking non-conformist and conforming them the easy way or the hard way. Lucas Jackson chose the hard way.

Luke...became a hero in the eyes of a lot of the prisoners...and became almost a religious icon as someone who would not conform to the chains that were to remind him of what the Captain was saying. Instead they reminded him of why he wanted to break free from those chains and not conforming to prison life. The name Cool Hand Luke came after he won a five card stud game on a stone cold bluff. Luke states..."Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a REAL COOL HAND." Many reviewers of the movie noted the religious context of Luke being a "Christ-like" character with his martyrdom by authorities. Even in the closing shoot of the movie they indicate that in the closing pullback shot of roads...there forms a distinct cross.

One of the most famous lines...that was repeated 2 times in the movie with a slight variation was found in this dialogue after Luke attempted on of his escapes:

CAPTAIN: You gonna get used to wearin' them chains after awhile, Luke. Don't you never stop listenin' to them clinking, cause they gonna remind you of what I've been saying.... for your own good.

LUKE" I wish you'd stop being so good to me, Cap'm.

CAPTAIN: Don't you ever talk that way to me. Never! Never!

(addressing the rest of the prisoners)

What we've got here...is FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE. Some men, you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week--which is the way he wants it. Well...he gets it. And I don't like it anymore than you men.

NOTE: He makes the statement again later...and adds...A failure to communicate.

Communication Breakdown is at the core of a lot of the problems in world relationships and in inter personal relationships. We have a FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE.

The heartbeat of God is COMMUNICATION. He is a revealer, discloser, a manifester of mysteries and secret things. The Greek word KOINONIA...has many meanings. On aspect of koinonia is to have FELLOWSHIP. It speaks of an intimacy going beyond surface relationships. It speaks of having something in common with someone. The root of the word is KOINE' which means common. There is the classical Greek language...and then there is the street language of the koine'...or common man. This is what the New Testament is written...to communicate with the common man. Another meaning of koinonia is communion...COMMUNICATION... and sharing.
I'm convinced that God's heartbeat is to COMMUNICATE with us. I believe that the core of many of our problems as Christians is based on our having a FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE.

"For the crooked man is an abomination to the Lord; BUT He is intimate with the upright." (Proverbs 3:32)

The Amplified Bible puts it this way..."For the perverse are an abomination--extremely disgusting and detestable---to the Lord; BUT His confidential communion and secret counsel are with the uncompromisingly righteous--those who are upright and in right standing with Him."

Note that the FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE is not on God's end of the communication process...it is on my end. The ONLY way to get into a position of being upright and in right standing with Him...is JESUS CHRIST...and the D.B.R...nothing more...nothing less. Every time I move from the cross...and into righteousness based on my goodness...and what I can do or not do...I immediately go in to COMMUNICATION FAILURE. The only way to relink back into favor...is the way I got there in the first place...grace, mercy, yielding my will to His will by the BLOOD of Jesus (I John 1:1-10) This is where the word...KOINONIA is found in reference to our standing with Him.

One of my favorite scriptures to fall back on when I don't understand something is Deuteronomy 29:29..."The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the THINGS REVEALED belongs to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law."

As in the movie Cool Hand Luke...the chains that bind us can remind us to conform to this world and remain prisoners...or they can remind us that IT WAS FOR FREEDOM THAT CHRIST SET US FREE... THEREFORE KEEP STANDING FIRM...AND DO NOT BE SUBJECT AGAIN TO A YOKE OF SLAVERY. (Galatians 5:1).

For Luke...the freedom that he sought was found in death. For us... the freedom that we seek is found in death....and resurrection. When we die to our SELF...our wishes...our desires...and then allow God to breath His Spirit on us...we really begin to LIVE. Sometimes I find my self walking around with the chains of the flesh...like a zombie or the living dead... when I could be set free. What I have is FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE... with the Creator of Communication.

Love and NON-FAILURED Kisses
Rodney " I'm Shaking It Boss" Boyd