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Sunday, December 9, 2007

When I'm Not Being Jesus

The other day, I got home from work or somewhere and it was cold out. I pulled into my parking space and this lady pulled in to the spot next to me at almost the same time. She was first out of her car and then I got out. She was doing something near the front of her car and I didn't know what, so I glanced over. I saw that she was trying to open her hood so she could put antifreeze in. Unfortunately, we have had ice and snow for the past week and this was proving to be a hard task with the iced-over hood. So, big strong...Christian...me walks by and pretends that I don't see anything...ouch. Could I have helped her open that iced-over hood? Absolutely. Did I do anything? No. I went into my warm house, turned on the TV and pretended that that didn't just happen. I guess you could say that was one of those times when I was not being Jesus.

Well today, I was making four sandwiches at the same time for a group of people. I wrote down their specific orders, yet I decided to totally ignore what one of the guys wanted and made him something totally different. My mind was somewhere else, to say the least. I didn't realize this mistake until I took the sandwiches out to their table and was handing them out. No one was responding when I was asking who had the mistake sandwich...and that's when it hit. I apologized, of course, and offered to go make him the right order. Before I could say another word, he says, "Don't worry about that. I'll eat this one. I'm not picky." WHAT?!! Who does crap like that? I am so picky when it comes to wrong orders, especially when it is a totally different order. But this guy totally ate it and said he liked it (while he might have just been "being nice"). They paid later on and I gave him the sandwich at no cost because of my stupidity. Here's where the story gets even better. On the way out the door, the guy stops at the counter and leaves me a tip!! WHAT?!! I was pretty sure that I totally screwed up this guy's order, tried to make an excuse for making the wrong order, let him eat the mistake, and then he tips me on top of that! Now that's being Jesus.

I don't know if that guy was a "Christian." I don't know if he even believed in anything, but he displayed it better than I do sometimes. It's not because he gave me money, while that was fun. It is because he took a rough situation (that could have gone MUCH worse), just laughed and then even gave me something despite all that. I can tell you, I have read about Jesus doing this a lot during His time on earth--along with many other amazing things. He continues to offer things to people, even when they don't deserve it. That's what us Christian folk call grace.

Man...sometimes I suck. Please don't hate me...I'm working on it and I'm sure I'm not alone. I can probably think of other times where I did alright at this, but I sure missed it this time. God forgive me for letting that lady struggle out in the cold to get the hood open. Forgive me for the hundreds of other times I missed out on being Jesus to someone. Help me to learn from this and take the opportunities that come in the future.

1 comments:

Bethany Kay said...

man...sadly i have to join you in that boat... today i walked on the other side of the room just so i wouldn't have to talk to some one....BAAAAH. i feel awful that i would even think to do something like that...but i did...and i actually did it...and then after i thought that it was so stupid...& i didnt get why...eh. anyways, i dont hate you.