Read
Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you,
and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
blessed are all those who wait for him.
Isaiah 30:18
Reflect
Atlanta was in a stir in July 1996. The world had descended on the city for the Summer Olympics, and there was more excitement during that time than maybe any other time in the city’s recent history. A lot of people took vacations and left town because they feared even worse traffic than usual. (And if you’re familiar with Atlanta, you know how bad the traffic can be.) My wife and I stayed, in part because we wanted to go to at least one event. My parents floated me a ticket for one of the track and field sessions, but I was able to get two tickets to a baseball game. We just had to pick them up downtown on July 27.
You might recognize that date. The world does now. But it caught us all by surprise and changed the impression of those Olympics forever. Things were peaceful when we went to sleep on this night 25 years ago. When we woke up and turned on the TV, we were met with stories about a bombing where two people died. Excitement had turned to terror, and fairly quickly the suspicion turned to the security guard who had found the bomb minutes before it detonated — an unassuming man named Richard Jewell.
I understand Richard Jewell. He was a guy who wanted to do more with his life, but whose decisions and appearance hadn’t helped with that effort. He wanted to be a police officer, but for now he lived with his mother, Bobbi, and worked as a security guard. That night, he paid attention to the right things and noticed the odd green backpack under a bench in Centennial Olympic Park and alerted authorities. Sadly, misguided FBI investigators and overly ambitious news reporters were all too willing to point the finger at Richard because he fit the profile of a fame-seeker. (They even ran headlines calling him a “hero,” complete with the quotation marks that seemed to mock the word inside them.) Of course, nothing else fit, but the narrative suited their purposes for the moment.
Meanwhile, Richard and his mother were dragged through the fire for three months. During that time, they were subjected to questioning and innuendo, and it was hard for Richard to go anywhere without being accosted by strangers who assumed that what they heard in the media was the truth. Even six years later in 2002, Richard confessed in an interview with 60 Minutes, “You go to a grocery store and hear people whisper your name. They stare at you, they point at you.” In spite of of his actions that night, he said, “I’ve never been treated like a hero. I don’t know what a hero’s treated like. Most people don’t say that. Most people say [I’m] the ex-suspect.”
Most of us will never have to endure what Richard Jewell went through, but there may be times that we will find ourselves being accused unjustly. That’s a hard place to be, especially because our “good name” is something most of us work very hard to establish. Proverbs 22:1 reminds us that, “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold.” So what do we do when we find ourselves the object of unfair scrutiny?
Ultimately, the only good name we can trust in is the Lord’s. Isaiah 30:18 says that, “Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.” God wants to show us mercy and grant justice, and we need to trust that He will ultimately do that. In Richard Jewell’s case, justice was done, even if it took a long time to get there. Even if the damage could not be completely healed, he was, in fact, exonerated, and the officials and reporters who jumped the gun were shamed. (In the case of some of the media, they had to part with some money because of their actions.)
As we were told in Proverbs, do pay attention to your good name. There’s nothing wrong with establishing a good and godly reputation in your community and in the world. But if the day comes that you are accused wrongfully, remember that many others (Joseph, Job, Jeremiah, Paul, Jesus) were also falsely accused, and God eventually cleared and restored their names. It might not be without a little pain, but trust in God knowing that He is the only one in whose name you can trust.
Reflection copyright © 2024 Doug DeBolt.
Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
