Almost two decades ago, the not-yet but now Mrs. Robinson called me and said that there was a handbag made by one of her favorite designers that she wanted me to purchase as a gift for her upcoming birthday. I was asked to purchase the bag, because the price and exclusivity of this particular handbag belonged to that class of handbags referred to as “man-bags.” “Man-Bags” are so called because no woman in her right mind would ever pay such an exorbitant amount of money for an item that she could easily offload to a potential suitor angling to win her affections. But I digress lol.

So off I went to one of this designer’s marquee stores on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. All these years later, I still remember the heavy glass doors at the entrance and how the carpet in the store swallowed up my shoes as I moved to the counter. “May I help you?” an anorexic looking woman with piercing eyes asked me as she looked me up and down trying to assess my viability as a customer. “Yes,” I replied, in the most casual, unimpressed and unbothered tone that I could muster. I told her the bag that I was looking for. At the mere mention of that bag, her eyebrows arched higher than a cat’s spine when struck by electricity. “Are you sure you are interested in that bag,?” she pressed further. “Yes, that bag,” I insisted.

She picked up the walkie talkie that was near the cash register, rapidly muffled a command and then two security guards suddenly appeared and asked me to follow them. I followed the security guards up one flight of stairs and then behind two doors to another counter. At that counter, another even more anorexic looking woman appeared with even more piercing eyes, and words flew out of her mouth like spears during tribal warfare in an ancient African village. “I understand you want to see the so and so bag.” “Yes, that bag,” I said with a trace of irritation in my voice. She reached for a pair of keys attached to a black rubber wristlet under the counter and slid it over one of her wrists. Then she climbed a ladder and grabbed a box that was perched atop a glass pillar. She descended from the ladder, put the box on the counter, slid the wristlet back over one of her wrists, and unlocked the box. Next, she reached in one of her pockets, put on some gloves, and lifted the bag out of the box. Finally, she looked at me as if I had just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and said “Here is the bag.”

For the sheer pageantry surrounding the purchase of that bag, the experience gets an A+. I had never been in an environment where the choreography of getting the money out of my pocket was performed with such exquisite care. But beyond that, the experience taught me a lasting lesson. The lasting lesson that it taught me was that you should always protect what is valuable. That bag was so valuable (or at least the store wanted it to appear such) that it was not easily accessible. It was not on a display shelf on the first floor. It was on the second floor behind two doors in a locked box atop a glass pillar, that required a ladder and white gloves to access.

This is the lesson that Jesus was trying to impress upon the hearts of his auditors in Matthew 7:4, when he warned them not to “throw your pearls to pigs!.” Jesus advised against doing so because pigs “will trample the pearls, then turn and attack you.” Pigs do not appreciate pearls. They do not have the mental, emotional, or spiritual capacity to appreciate objects as rare, valuable and beautiful as pearls. So to share something as valuable as a pearl with an animal as nasty as a pig is an exercise in futility. So far as a pig is concerned, a pearl isn’t any better than mud.

Unfortunately, some people are like pigs. So here is today’s question: are you sharing your valuable resources with people who do not have the capacity to appreciate them?

All of us need to do a better job of protecting our pearls. Your time, attention, creativity, money, passion, ambition, and intelligence is far too valuable to let just anyone take advantage of it. Stop being so available, helpful and willing. Play hard to get. Heed the lesson: that which we obtain too easily we value too lightly. Keep your pearls for the people who deserve them.

Protect Your Pearls