Before I was concerned about what God would think I would not slow down or think about what I said when reacting to something that bothered me.
My boss just sent a response to a customer apologizing for how things were handled, and I was the one handling it, and I was handling it the way he told me to handle it.
I wrote back this morning asking him why he apologized, then I wrote down how it made me feel, and then I started in with what good managers do, what a real manager does, and after writing it, I deleted everything after “Please tell me why you wrote this.”
I then started in again about management skills and good vs. bad managers, then deleted that, too.
After one or two more of these, I ended up just asking for an explanation and saying it made me feel like I was being hung out to dry to make him look good, and asking if he would please tell me who he is apologizing for.
Even that may be too ‘harsh’, but hey! I may be saved, but I’m still human, and telling someone how what they did makes one feel is not a bad thing, so long as it is done in a non-blaming or accusatory way. Things are stressful at work and my poor boss, who really doesn’t want the job and is not handling it very well, is more stressed than we are. But that is what being the boss means, and if he can’t handle it he should ask his manager to let him go back to being a tech.
One could make an argument that his boss should already know about what is happening.
So, nu? What’s my point here? My point is that even if my boss did the worst thing any boss can do, the worst thing that anybody can do (for that matter) which is to make me look bad so he looks good, as a Believer I should be able to demonstrate fairness and patience. I should wait to decide what is happening until I hear his side, too. I can’t stop my emotional reaction, but with the Ruach I can control it to the point where I delete those messages that I would, in the flesh, prefer to send.
We need to do this all the time, not just with silly little misunderstandings at work, even when they aren’t silly or misunderstandings. We (meaning those that profess to be God-fearing) should show those who don’t know the Lord that we can overcome the flesh and the emotions that it brings because we have the Ruach (Spirit) to help guide us to be compassionate and fair. And patient to hear the whole story.
This isn’t a “Make it or Break it” event for me- I understand the management issues where I work. They aren’t really any different than any other place I have worked at. And because I am only 1 1/2 years away from retiring, it does make it harder to take. Truth to tell, God has blessed us enough that if I wanted to quit tomorrow we could afford it, although it would be really stupid to do because we have a number of big expenses coming to finish this house upgrade and I would rather pay them from earned income and not from savings.
But still, it is hard to overcome the flesh. That’s no excuse for Believers. Just like a boss who should take the “heat” for his or her people when something doesn’t go right, we have to show what having the spirit of God inside us means, how it separates us from those without spiritual guidance, and to make sure what we do brings glory to God.
So go forth into the world of flesh, and do so with the strength not to succumb to the flesh, which we get from the Ruach HaKodesh that lives inside of us. Yeshua called it the Comforter, so let it do it’s job and comfort you when you feel abused, ignored, mistreated and unfairly accused.
Get used to it because if you are going to be a Believer in the tribulations to come, that is the kind of treatment you can expect from nearly everyone.
Every day, in every way, we are in training for the End Times.
