I was helping a customer yesterday. HELPING! I was with him for about 3 minutes. It seemed like thirty. He was negative about everything. He complained about everything. In the end, I am not sure I even helped him, or that I could have helped him.

He was in the middle of a project. He had need of some very specific materials to accomplish his goal. I showed him the best solutions for the best prices. He said, “I know you don’t have anything cheaper, but this is still too much.” Then he told me that he guesses he has no choice but to be robbed. He puts the first items in his cart.

Then he complained that I gave him the wrong color. When I arrived he had that color in his hand, he just had the wrong size. I assumed, wrongly that he was looking for that color. So we pulled the items from the cart. I retrieved the correct ones. As I pulled them from the shelf, he complained about the condition of a box that I didn’t give him.

The box was open on one end and was a little ratty looking, so I set it aside. He ranted about it being a mess. I thought it was unacceptable also, that is why I laid it aside. It didn’t matter, He was unhappy that the torn box was even in the store. I was happy when he had his couple of items and was ready to leave.

But, he turned around and asked for help with one more item. I showed him the choices that we had. I answered his questions politely. He complained that we don’t manage our store well and that there are too many thieves. Since we did a poor job at running our business, it costs him a fortune. He wanted to know how I expected him to survive. He said he couldn’t afford to keep going with the way we were raising prices.

As I stood there with him ranting at me about something I had no control over, I thought about my response. I knew that I couldn’t say what I was thinking. My employer would not appreciate my rude and sarcastic side. I also thought about how God would feel about it. This man truly needed Jesus so as a Christian I didn’t want to do the wrong thing.

Later as I thought about this, I realized that my idea of living for Jesus was messed up. I was trying, in my power and strength, to do the right thing. I was doing the same thing for Jesus as I was doing for my employer. I was trying hard to act right when I wanted to do the wrong thing.

I was doing nothing more than what my non-Christian counterparts do. They choose to behave in the face of adversity too! Then they walk away and complain about the crabby customer. So do I. So then what difference is there with the saved and unsaved in practical living? Nothing is different, unless I am working in tandem with the Spirit.

In my walk with God, I must trust that the Spirit is there and let Him do the work in me. I need to do more than tough out the difficulties in life by my own power. I need to rest in God. I need to leave the hard work to him. I know that living in the Spirit is more than what I did yesterday, because there was no love in my choice.

I did not love this man. I did not care about his eternal best. I did what was right because it was right. It was about rules and regulations. It was about the law, not about love.

Tomorrow before work, I am going to pray that the Spirit clothes me in His character. In that way, I will be able to love the unlovely and respond supernaturally to difficulties. I pray that I will be able to live in a way that God’s glory shines through me.

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.” (Colossians 3:12–15, ESV)