Time Out For Digging Out Newsletter
   

You Pay Cash II

April 2008
   
 

While running errands one afternoon, I decided to call my favorite Chinese restaurant to order a late lunch for myself and something for Katie and Hollie to share when they came home from school.

“I’d like one order of garlic chicken and a small orange chicken,” I announced.

“No have small orange chicken,” the restaurant employee replied.

“Yes you do, it’s on your lunch menu.”

“Which menu?”

“The one that is taped to your counter,” I announced. “Look at it. You’ll see that orange chicken is there.”

“You must be thinking of old menu,” the man insisted.

“No, it’s on the new menu. The owner of your restaurant added it just for me.”

“No small orange chicken on new lunch menu,” the employee repeated.

“I ordered a small orange chicken for lunch just last week,” I assured him. “Ask the owner, he’ll remember.”

“Owner no here.”

Frustrated by my failure to place a simple order, I pondered my next move … until it became clear that I didn’t have one.

“I guess I won’t order anything,” I snapped before promptly ending the call.

I'd been dealing with this restaurant for more than a year. Too many times to count, I thought about giving up and going elsewhere. This was one of them as I drove in the opposite direction of the restaurant to run one more errand before heading home.

Why am I such a magnet for conflict? I wondered as I walked in Sam’s Club to purchase a few needed items.

Feeling “harassed at every turn”[i] like the apostle Paul after he arrived in Macedonia, I put my grocery shopping on hold and headed for the book aisle in search of advice. As I scanned the new titles available, one in particular caught my eye.

“Conflict Free Living: How to Build Healthy Relationships for Life,” I read aloud.

Too timely to pass up, I reached for the book by Joyce Meyer and thumbed through its pages until the contents of a shaded box captured my attention.

“Rather than trying to make someone treat you fairly,” the author wrote, “pray for them, and trust God to take care of you.”[ii]

Not liking what I read, I flipped to another page which offered similar advice: “When someone offends you, resist strife by responding with mercy and understanding. Give the person the benefit of the doubt. Remember that love always believes the best.”[iii]

From these quotes, it became clear that the only way out of this conflict was through it as I continued to frequent the restaurant. What I didn’t understand was why. Why, after everything the restaurant owner put me through during the past eighteen months, would anyone—even God—expect me to stay?[iv]

Maybe because you have something to learn, a voice whispered after leading me to page five of Joyce's book where I read: “Strife is not just a problem between people; it's often a problem within a person. What is going on inside of you?”

What is going on inside of me? I wondered. Why do I think I have to correct every injustice that comes my way?

The idea that God might be trying to teach me something reminds me of what the prophet Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” If this promise applies, not just to careers, but to conflict as well, then God's plan for this clash was to remind me that too much of a good thing is a bad thing when our strong sense of fairness causes us to take matters into our own hands instead of leaving them in God’s.

A Link For You

God worked through circumstances to teach me that gaining peace requires giving up control. If we could interview God, what else would He tell us about how we are to live?

The owners of AngelNetwork.com LLC  asked this question and came up with some insightful answers.

Click on the link below to view their slideshow presentation:

The Interview With God

 

An Archives Entry That's New

Click on the following link to view the latest archives entry:

If Yes Then Press

An Updated Organizing Tip

The rhyme mentioned in the archives entry, If Yes Then Press, has been added to the Rhymes to Remember document found linked to the organizing tips page for guiding children in the way they should go.

A Verse To Heed

“If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”

(Romans 12:18)

A Book To Read

I recommended this book in my last newsletter. Because it also fits with this month's story—and because it is such an important topic for all of us to master—I mention it again.

Conflict is inevitable. With Joyce's help, we can at least make it educational as we learn to depend on God for justice, instead of demanding it for ourselves.

 
Conflict Free Living by Joyce Meyer
Click on the image above to view a description of this book.
 

There is a difference between proving we are right and doing what is right. Never was this more true than when I faced my culinary nemesis a week later to pick up an order for takeout. Braced for the worst, the owner surprised me with his best grin when I walked through the door.

He never smiles, I thought to myself as I cautiously approached the counter.

“When you call last week, you order small orange chicken,” the owner gushed before I had a chance to speak.

“Yes, and your employee wouldn’t make it for me,” I replied.

Small orange chicken only on the dinner menu,” the owner clarified. “Orange chicken on the lunch menu. Cannot use the word small.”

You’ve got to be kidding, I thought to myself as I stared at him in disbelief. Just when I thought I had figured out all the rules, another one tripped me up. Not ready to fall alone, I boldly asked: “Isn’t the orange chicken that you serve for lunch the same size as the small orange chicken on the dinner menu?”

“Yes,” the owner said proudly.

He doesn’t get it, I said to myself as the man walked away to retrieve my order. Our words can get the best of us or bring out the best in us; and instead of mastering the English language, it had become the master over him.

As I waited for the man to return with my food, I had to wonder: Is this how people in biblical times felt when religious leaders interpreted God’s laws with such stifling legalism that commonsense took a back seat to the pretense of putting policies before people?

Jesus experienced this behavior firsthand when the Pharisees challenged his decision to heal a crippled man on the Sabbath. “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?”

When the Pharisees did not answer, Jesus “looked around at them in anger” and was “deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts”. Like the owner of the Chinese restaurant, instead of mastering their interpretation of the law, it had become the master over them.[v]

Nobody wins when we put rules before a relationship with the people they are designed to serve. The restaurant employee lost a sale and I lost my sense of peace by challenging the authority of someone who, in the end, proved unwilling or unable to change.

It was this lack of peace that made me want to set the restaurant owner strait. To remind him that his menu was made for man, not man for the menu. Instead, I took Joyce Meyer’s advice when she said: “God can't change a person if we stand in His way … Set the people in your life free, and trust God to make whatever changes are necessary.”[vi]

The saying is true: Sometimes the best thing we can do is nothing at all as we stop taking disagreements personally and started taking them directly to the One who can work out even the worst misunderstandings for our good.

I walked out of that restaurant a better person, not because I had my say, but because I held my tongue. The saying is true: Sometimes the best thing we can do is nothing at all as we stop taking disagreements personally and start taking them directly to the One who can work out even the worst misunderstandings for our good. It is when we trust God with the conflict around us, that He reduces the tension within us as we let go of being right and trust our Creator to do what is right in His, rather than our own, time.

Quotes to Grow On

“When trouble comes, our first temptation is to get upset, speak out of our emotions, and start trying first one thing and then another in the hopes of finding something that will work and turn the situation around. All of these are unacceptable behaviors for the believer who is walking in faith. None of them will bring victory.”

Joyce Meyer, Conflict Free Living, p. 160

“The next time something or someone threatens to steal your peace, don't give in. Instead, release God's power by ... trusting that He will take care of the situation for you.”

Joyce Meyer, Conflict Free Living, p. 163


[i]    2 Corinthians 7:5b.

[ii]   Joyce Meyer, Conflict Free Living, p. 78.

[iii]  Joyce Meyer, Conflict Free Living, p. 46.

[v]   See Mark 3:5 for this and the previous paragraph.

[vi]  Joyce Meyer, Conflict Free Living, pp.124–125.

 

   
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