Showing posts with label witnessing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label witnessing. Show all posts

Sunday, March 8, 2015

Forgiveness first requires the wound to be addressed

Before a splinter wound can begin healing, the infection must first be treated.
Watching a terrific sermon on forgiveness today, a real-world illustration helped me better understand a basic tenet of Christianity that many of us believers may not fully understand how to process or to completely forgive someone for their transgression against us.

I know from a personal standpoint I may have "forgiven"someone in the past but never really addressed, or processed what happened, how I felt about it and how I would move forward. As a result, the usual human reaction of "I will forgive but not forget" rears it's head and I may say I "forgive" but without fully addressing the underlying issue, am I truly forgiving the other person?

Consider the illustration above. By design, the human body rejects an offending foreign object like a splinter. The process begins with anti-bodies surrounding the site to mitigate infection. From there, the body starts to reject the foreign object to the surface, or encapsulate it in scar tissue. Now if we were to put a bandage on top of the splinter wound, we would cover it up, but the pain will still be there and will continue to be sensitive as the wound festers. Our first reaction is to simply bandage the wound but that is only a superficial treatment.  Below the surface is where the real offense lies and that is where it needs to be addressed.

By bandaging the wound, we are in effect, only covering something up rather than getting to the root of the matter. However, if we dig in and take hold of that splinter and remove it, the healing process can begin immediately and the pain from the infection is dramatically reduced. The human body can now naturally heal itself from the inside out.

In other words, in my estimation, until I fully engage the who, what and why of what offended me, my forgiveness is only superficial, can continue to cause pain and not permit me to process, forgive and move on as Jesus has done for me.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

A lack of Grace: 5 Things we can Learn When Someone Expects Perfection in us

Learn from the past and quickly leave it there
to look to the future
When we seek or expect perfection in others we encounter in life we set ourselves up for disappointment and the other person for failure. This past week a customer made that abundantly clear to me.

As an internet or e-commerce director, my responsibility is to drive my store's profitability through a digital medium: To put our best foot forward through a customer's perspective via our website, email communication or the phone. A basic part of the email standpoint is to use effective email directly to each individual per their inquiry (basically to ensure we answer any question a potential customer may have given us) or to use a mass emailing to elicit a response. Mass emailing must be targeted unless I want to run the risk of a high opt-out rate which would lead to ISP's or Internet Service Providers like Yahoo!, MSN and AOL to view our IP address as a SPAM generator.  This I do and have done for years. In fact, I have probably sent out more than 500,000 emails in my career to prospective and current customers. This week was much the same as any other communication.

For those of you in a position of responsibility, you know you have many distractions- your people, contemporaries, supervisors, owners, manufacturers, customers, your daily process, etc., etc., etc.  In other words, MANY distractions. For those of you who are not supervisors, you have many distractions as well: Life, home, friends, etc. I am no different.

With the Christmas holiday right around the corner and then the end of the year next, I had been aiming to send out a mass email to our unsold prospects, and had been trying all day to get it written and compiled before it was too late in the day on Monday the 23rd of December. Unfortunately, I had been unable to complete this task due to many distractions until around 4:00 that afternoon. Long after I knew people would be reading this email at their morning break at work.

A couple of hours later, I received a very threatening voice mail on my mobile phone that if I wanted "my side of the story" to be heard on a "national article about the dealership" and to be named in it myself, I was to call back before the end of the night.  I normally don't do well when people try to threaten me- after having been under direct fire before words have little effect in causing me any anxiety. Out of managerial duty and curiosity I returned the call and the person confirmed it was him- we shall call him Larry.

Larry started on a line of questioning like he was an attorney so I was quickly on the guard, and I asked him what he in fact did for a living. He informed me he writes articles for national magazines like Time and such. Terrific.

I asked how I could help him and he started to tell me how I had lied to him. Okay sir, you now have my attention.

"How did I do that to you?" I asked.

"By emailing me that I had previously made an inquiry by email to buy a car.  I had not had I?"

"No sir, you did not. I see you were in for service previously, and had not made an inquiry about a purchase. That was my mistake."

But he persisted and again said I lied to him. I told him I had made a mistake and it was an oversight for which I held myself responsible.

The third time he called me a liar I pushed back hard. "THAT is enough!" I said. "You will not call me a liar again. I have owned up to the mistake, I have apologized repeatedly, what more can I do? What more do you want from me?"

It was at that exact moment I realized I was being attacked by evil. God had given me the patience and words to endure this withering assault against my character, my store, my job and my family.

His mood instantly changed and we spent the next 30 minutes talking about his experiences while photographing various topics. I viewed his website and some of his images and I couldn't help but think to myself "I'm the liar?" Every one of his photos were no doubt photographed with high performance SLR cameras with filters to capitalize and emphasize the lighting. Perhaps even digital manipulation.

In other words, every one of those photographs, as they were depicted, never truly happened.  Ironic.

I even went on to edify him, lauding his vast experience and accomplishments, and thanked him for his insight and bringing this to my attention. I don't think he knew quite what to do.

After hanging up I was quite upset, not quite angry, but still shaken. Surprisingly, I was not nearly as agitated as I would have ordinarily been.

When my GM came in the following day, I knew he was going to be calling the customer back so I gave him back-fill from my experience and he just smirked, shaking his head.  He went on to tell me how this "gentleman" came to be our customer.

He had come in just a couple of days before I started in August, and complained about how he was not treated well with two of our competitive stores, one of which has written a book on customer service. He had come in for a major service and insisted on meeting the mechanics whom would be working on his car. Not a bad idea.

Bending over backwards to earn his business, Ken asked the customer if our manufacturer had offered him any sort of coupon for his experience and he said no, they had not. So Ken then directs the service department to sell the service at cost for him.  Then right in front of Ken, this person pulls out a $500 coupon from the manufacturer and hands it to the service writer.

"Wait, I thought you said they didn't give you a coupon" my GM asked him.

"Oh yeah, well, I bitched a little more and they sent me one. I just want to get the best deal possible."

No, you just wanted to lie and steal from a company in the auspices of good faith.

This made me even angrier than I was before. A low-life scum bag like this accuses ME of lying. Someone who has never amounted to much of anything, probably never will, trying to pull someone else down to make himself feel better. His inflated resume is just that- inflated. Surely someone whom has contributed to TIME magazine for example would rank somewhere in search results, but no. The ONLY references I could find for him were the aforementioned website of his and an introductory page about him on an equine-focused website.

It is clear this person is devoid of a moral compass and peace. He is clearly hurting and probably doesn't know why. All I can do is forgive him and pray for him.

Some lessons to take from this encounter:

  1. Hurting people hurt other people. 
  2. The more someone tells you how great they are, the less likely it is they have accomplished anything they are building up in your mind.
  3. Liars think other people lie. (Or at least think sales people will sit quietly and take it)
  4. God extends us grace though we do not deserve it. Some people expect perfection from others and extend no grace. Perhaps they enjoy seeing the other person fail or they are purposely creating an environment to exploit to their advantage.
  5. Even when confronted with a situation like this, with His word and guidance, a Christian can defend themselves AND not destroy the other person with their spoken word.



Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Are you a BELIEVER, or are you a FOLLOWER?



Watching my friend getting baptized this weekend, one gentleman who preceded him stated he WAS a believer, but NOW is a FOLLOWER. That comment really resonated with me because for many years I have been a believer, but not necessarily a follower. During my walk I have been struggling to find the answer to what He would have me to do, and I realized not long ago I am in the desert because I was not following Him.

I posed this question recently to friends and not surprisingly, some like me, had not considered the difference between the two.

In the military when we were operating in a tactical environment with dozens of people moving around relying solely on their abilities to navigate and find key points to rally, people would often times not be at the assigned point and time in order to gather everyone together to accomplish the mission.  The one or two stragglers or folks who got lost, weren't disobeying their leaders or TRYING to fail. Rather, they were simply not following their leaders as closely as they should/could have.  They relied on themselves and in the bigger picture, their perspective failed not only them but those around them as well.

When I realized the error of my ways, and made a substantial change, I immediately felt more energized at work despite working 6 days a week for between 8-12 hours. I no longer felt as fatigued and stressed and now my family is benefiting from this. They are no longer getting my leftovers and a grouchy impatient husband and father.  I only wish I had been able to accomplish this much earlier for my sons. I was very difficult at times.

So, what is a believer, and, what makes someone a follower?Jesus is a leader today, but he followed God for his first 30 years before stepping fully into the leadership role God the Father had in store for his final 3 years on Earth. 

Below He illustrates the first maxim of leadership to Peter by serving or following first before leading men.



Jesus washes Peter's feet. An act of devotion and serving.
A believer is someone who, has accepted Christ as their Saviour and has received the anointing of the Holy Spirit as a believer. Call it Christianity 101 if you will.  They are often fervent and passionate about the Word and grace they have received. Hungry for more exposure to the Lord and plugged in so to speak about their church perhaps. Sharing with others their new-found faith and forgiveness.  This is an all-important first step, the significance of which cannot be overstated, for without first believing there can be NO following.  However, the new believer may not yet have a complete submission to God in all facets of their life.

For example, as a child, we mostly follow our parents' guidance for two reasons; positional authority and our innate belief they have our best interests at heart. This is true even though at times we don't understand why they may "rain on our parade" as it were. We lament to them "but everyone else is doing it (or going)". Sometimes we might rebel and defend it saying to ourselves "They just don't understand", thus justifying our disobedience and the breaking of their trust and wishes.

That doesn't take us away from being their child or even being faithful to them, just as a sheep may stray from the herd doesn't mean it no longer has faith in the shepherd. The child will learn a lesson from the disobedience, which is a part of the growing process, and the sheep likewise, will in kind follow the shepherd once again.

As we grow in our walk and become more and more spiritual as a follower, we learn at a far greater pace what God has in store for us. And we have to- it is simple physiology. When we take our eyes off a distraction and focus on the goal, we accomplish many things.  As a follower of Christ, our eyes are, by definition, upon Him and not on the earthly distractions. I firmly feel this is where "Christians" like the ilk of Westboro Baptist are so far astray from the walk with the Lord they are actually doing more harm than good. While they may believe, they are most certainly not following. I can say this with great faith for in John 8:1-11 Jesus forgave the adulterous woman when no legalist remained free of sin to cast the first stone. He forgave the sinner OF  the sin, and BECAUSE of the sin. WBC is proclaiming GOD killed our sons in battle because the Army is permitting homosexuals in it's ranks. That viewpoint cannot be reconciled with the heart and teachings of Jesus. It is clearly contradictory to anyone who is truly forgiven.


A Christian pointing his finger at sin does not realize he has THREE fingers pointing back at himself!

Furthermore, were there any Truth to their belief, would not ALL soldiers necessarily be condemned to the same sentence as their fallen comrades?

By following, we also receive better discernment on how to contend with sticky situations whether they be professional or personal, like how to help show the light to a non-believer.  This is critical for followers, for in order to be a good leader, you must FIRST, be a good follower. This of course is why people cannot simply start at a major corporation as a Vice-President or CEO without the commensurate experience. Likewise, Generals are not born into the army as they used to be but rather molded through experiences as a subordinate. Can you imagine a judge with no legislative experience hearing a case? A doctor having not completely subordinated themselves to their medical professors' experience and leadership? It simply could not happen in this world.

So the question falls to you now. Are you a believer or a follower?  If I can make the same type of impact on someone else I just received then that will bless me for my remaining days.