The Fight Continues

Most of you reading this blog are from the Midwest and have been to a Hy-Vee store before. If you’ve been in one during the past month you know we changed up how we do our gas discounts. And let me tell you…people are NOT happy about it. Every time I go in for work I have at least one customer tell me how much they hate the new fuel saver program and that they won’t be buying gas from Hy-Vee anymore. I just smile politely and apologize, because it wasn’t my idea to start this new deal in the first place and I can do absolutely nothing to change it. But it has started wearing on me…day after day of crabby, unsatisfied customers is definitely not fun to deal with.

It dawned on me today though that it is so easy to pick up out negativity in strangers, or even friends and family, for that matter. I can have thirty happy customers come through my line, thirty people who say hello, chatter politely, and then say thank you and leave with a smile. But when one crabby person comes through my line it sticks with me. I remember them. It bothers me that they had nothing good to say the entire time; that nothing I did was good enough for them. When they leave all I can think is My goodness, you don’t have one pleasant thing to say today??  They let one trip to the grocery store ruin their entire day, when really, in the grand scheme of things, a fuel saver program isn’t going to have that much of an impact on them. Sure, it may inconvenience or frustrate them…but really…they probably have much to be thankful for.

That is the sin in me talking. I stand across the check stand thinking this about them, silently criticizing them for not being grateful for what they have.  But I probably could not keep track of how many times a day I do the same thing.  Here are some of my daily thoughts…

            I pay HOW MUCH to go to this school every year, and yet I STILL can’t ever seem to find a place to park. Fantastic…looks like I’ll be walking half a mile to the dorms once again in the twenty degree weather…in the dark…

            Pasta again? REALLY? The cafeteria can’t come up with something new? Looks like pizza once again today…

            This person can’t drive. I doubt they even have a license. Ever heard of a turn signal, person? You are ruining my life…

            Seriously? You’re not going to text me back. This is your fiancée texting you…what if I was dying???

I could go on.  Regardless of how incredibly blessed I am, I still find something to complain about. And at the same time I stand across from people and send judgment on them for doing the same thing! This is also something Ben and I have been discussing as part of our premarital counseling. I am more often at fault of doing this than Ben is—I neglect to combat my own sin while at the same time jumping in and telling Ben everything that is wrong with him. Most of the time I am guilty of the exact thing I am finding offensive in him. In my selfishness I have always looked over the passage of Matthew 7, thinking it didn’t apply to me as a “good Christian girl.” I could not have been more wrong! So, this passage has been on my heart for the past couple of weeks, and to make up for all the lost time skipping it over and refusing to take it to heart, I am taking a hard look at it now and making an effort to put it into action:

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you notice the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but you do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is a log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

I think many people misread this passage, or rather, don’t read far enough. Many people are quick to point out that the Bibles says not to judge, which it clearly does, as seen in the passage above. But if you keep reading, it says that once we have taken the log out of our own eyes, then we will be able to take the speck out of our brother’s eyes. I take this passage to mean that first I must combat my own sin, and then I can help my fellow brother or sister in Christ combat theirs. It certainly does not mean standing across from them and saying, “I worked on my sin, now you work on yours! I learned to be thankful for my beautiful life, now you be thankful for yours!” Perhaps a better way to do this is to make a conscious effort to praise God for my beautiful life…work on verbalizing my praise and subtracting the complaints. Isn’t it easier to praise alongside of someone? It is certainly easy to complain alongside someone, so it will probably have the same effect. It’s something I’m trying out, anyway. I wish my daily thoughts went more like this…

            God gave you two legs for a reason. Walking from this upper parking lot to your dorm won’t kill you. And it’s giving you a chance to enjoy this beautiful, clear night.

            You have such a wide array of food to choose from. There will soon come a time in your life when you will wish someone put out five different options of food and then cleaned up after you. Enjoy this while you can…

            This person driving in front of me is a child of God. They are loved dearly, who am I to criticize them?

            Whatever you are doing right now, it is for a purpose. I know you will text me back when you get the chance. Clearly I am not dying and I can wait a few hours to talk to you!

That would be great. And I’m trying! I fail daily at it, but I am fighting it. I have a beautiful life—I have been blessed far beyond what I can imagine. I cannot even begin to wrap my mind around how good God has been to me. I see people all around me going through storms and hardships, and I wonder why that is. Why is this life so hard for others, and yet others seem to just walk on through? I have been through my share of storms, and the threat of one is never far off, but still. Compared to some, I have it pretty easy. I want to realize now, while I am in the midst of the calm, that God is good and that no matter what he is there, he is providing. So I will continue to fight so that when the storms do come, I’ll be ready.