Traps! They are so easy to fall into. I wrote a children's book several years ago that is out of print, but it tells the story of 2 boys playing ping pong in their basement and discovering that mice are running on their drop ceiling. The dad in the story goes out and buys mouse traps to catch the annoying critters. The book's title was "Mouse Mayhem." It's based on a true story! The 2 boys are my brother Mike and I and the dad is our dad. I remember at the parsonage I lived in we had racoons trying to get into my attic. We had traps set up to catch them. We did trap them, but we also trapped a curious squirrel as well! Not once but twice!
The "traps" I am referring to are not capturing animals and of course not hurting them. I mean the trap of a bad or negative attitude. When I pastored at my first church in New York, I did have to deal with people and majorly bad attitudes toward me. Don't get me wrong, there were some doozies, but not your average run of the mill bad attitude where someone was in your face speaking to you rudely. Nobody was getting mad at me because there were no pickles on their sandwich because I was not dealing with food. I was dealing with people and most of them were Christians!
When I began my career at Chick Fil-A almost ten years ago, I worked in the "real world" customer service. Nobody cared that I was a pastor and when they were not satisfied, they DID NOT just walk away, they let you know it. It doesn't matter if it was an old lady from Ronkonkoma, NY or a truck driver from Charleston, SC, when they were missing items in their bag or their fries were cold, they let you know and sometimes not very nicely. Last week here in South Carolina and was outside taking orders. We call it "Face to Face." It was hot outside; noisy traffic was going by on Harbison Blvd which is in front of our restaurant and we had fans blowing by as well as noisy cars idling. It was hard to hear people. It seems as though I got all the quiet, soft spoken people that day. I had to ask several times for people to repeat themselves. Some spoke up but some spoke in the same tone. I even told this one young guy "Pretend you are yelling at me!" I did have one lady however who seemed very annoyed that I could not hear her. She tried to order from the passenger side of the car and her husband, who I thought might translate for me just sat there not saying anything. The way she answered me was extremely rude but also what disturbed me more was the way she glared at me when they pulled away after they ordered. All I can say is that it greatly disturbed me but also "put me on edge." I found myself having that same attitude that woman had. I tried to put a smile on my face buy I could tell I was becoming very "short" with people. I thought to myself "How dare she talk to me rudely and glare at me. Doesn't she understand I had trouble hearing her?" It was there that I felt the Lord speak to my heart and say, "Hey Dave, don't fall into the trap!" "The trap? But God, she was rude to me!" I was then reminded that not everybody walks around with a smile on their face or having a "Sunshine Day" like a preschooler. Some people have bad days and take it out on anyone they are in contact with. I then realized that I fell into the same trap. "Well, if you are going to be rude to me, then I'm going to be rude to you and everyone else I'm in contact with!" Is being rude going to help? Not really! I could lose my job by being rude but more importantly, what kind of witness is that to someone who does not know Jesus as their savior?
Friends, we should not fall into that trap! Someone who is not a Christian will feel "Hey, I can express myself and show everyone how I feel." The reality is THEY DON'T CARE! But as a Christian, I don't want to fall into that trap where my attitudes is extremely "raunchy". I want people to see Jesus in me. That's what it's all about! Traps are meant for animals, not our attitudes! Just some food for thought on this hot July day!
HAVE A GREAT WEEK EVERYONE!!
