You remember hearing and seeing the popular phrase, WWJD? ‘What Would Jesus Do.’ If you do, very likely you also remember often seeing the mocking curl of the lip of someone in the vicinity. That sentence showed up everywhere and soon became trite and overused. And almost guaranteed to irritate anyone nearby.

I can even remember hearing certain people as they would laugh and say, “WWJD … oh, yeah sure, me too. And I can give you a few ideas for your WWJD. But you probably ain’t gonna appreciate ‘em.”

Because show up it certainly did … everywhere. Remember the wrist bands? The t-shirts, license plates, coffee cups, plaques, business cards and pictures that carried that phrase, What Would Jesus Do? Talk about overkill, and running a good thing straight into the ground.

But honestly, was it the phrase that grated on the nerves, or the mouths that spouted it at the drop of a hat? Was it what the sentence stood for, or the hypocrisy it exposed, as people let it drip religiously out of their mouth – while at the same time their actions did exactly the opposite?

Being open and quite honest with you, I have to admit that WWJD wore mighty thin, mighty quickly for me too. Sure, I attempted to not let my feelings show with a mocking curl of my lip, but, I confess, inside it was there.

Why? Overkill, from hearing it way too often? Hypocrisy of the speaker? My own feelings of sudden guilt when confronted by such an ‘in your face” reminder of the One who is always hearing and watching me fall flat on my face too many times? Maybe. Or it could easily have been all of the above.

It is mighty difficult to hear “WWJD!” fall blithely from the lips of someone who has deliberately, or even unwittingly, cut someone to the quick, and then just five minutes later hear them sweetly use that same phrase again as they try to encourage their friend.

Hear me well. It was not the actual phrase, or the wording of the phrase, or the good intentions behind the creating of that phrase that was so irritating. WWJD is certainly representative of living a life that never hurts anyone or takes advantage of a situation. The meaning of WWJD is wonderful and worthy of attempting to emulate.

The problem lies with the fact that most didn’t. Most of the time we just delivered lip service to it as we smiled sweetly, and actually delivered WWTWD. And if you don’t recognize the ‘TW’ substitution, simply turn on your local news and see it in living color. The World … and folks, it’s not very pretty. And it’s certainly not sweet and loving. Not worth imitating at all. But yet we do. And predictably as the result, we now have what we have. A world that is deeply in turmoil. Anger, hate, revenge rule … AHRR, I guess.

— Podcasts are available at Coffeetimecolumn.com. Send any responses to andybowman839@gmail.com.