Matthew 25:31-46
I think that this is the only place where God’s judging the people is actually described. The fact that He is the judge is mentioned in several places, but the actual process of judgment is here only. It’s instructive to us in seeing how God will separate the righteous from the wicked and what he will use to judge between the two. It’s not the only passage we should use to determine God’s criteria for judgment, if that’s all there was we wouldn’t need the rest of the Bible.
So how does God divide the sheep from the goats? On the surface it would seem that it was only based on their performance, how good a person they were. But we know from scriptures like Romans 3:23 and Ephesians 2 that none of us are good enough and it only through God’s grace that we are saved. But this passage in Matthew draws a clear line between those who did good and those who did not.
What else can we observe about these two groups?

• There was a pattern to their behavior – meeting needs or not.
• Neither group recognized the pattern they were in as applying directly to Jesus. That seems odd to me in reference to the group of the righteous. How could they not understand that to serve others is to serve God?
• The goats recognized Jesus (called Him Lord) and were shocked that they had missed an opportunity to serve him.

What was the difference between the sheep and the goats? Was it perhaps that the goats were not exposed to any needy people while the sheep had many opportunities to serve? I doubt that was true. No one goes through life without being exposed to needs. Needs are everywhere around us, we are all exposed to them. If they were both exposed to needs, why did one group act and the other did not?
I believe this, as in everything, goes back to the heart. Hebrews 4:12 tells us that the Bible judges our hearts, back in 1 Samuel 16:7 when God chose David to be kin he rejected those who looked good to man because He was focused on the heart and so too here with the sheep and the goats. It wasn’t the actions themselves that lead God to be pleased with the sheep. In fact, the sheep seemed surprised that their actions had such an impact on God (so were the goats!) I believed the difference was in their focus.
The sheep had their focus outward on those around them. They were involved in others lives and that involvement revealed need that they were inspired to meet. I think that the goats were so involved with themselves that they completely missed the needs around them. Their own desires consumed them, crowding out the needs of others, so that they didn’t even see the needs, let alone meet them.
Look around you. What are the needs around you that you are too busy to meet or even see? Look at your family groups. How much time to spend with those people? Are you too busy to get together with them? Are there perhaps needs that you aren’t even aware of because you just haven’t stopped long enough to see?
Jesus came and was known as one who met needs. In fact, once that became known, the crowds flocked to Him and He did not turn them away. The more that came, the more He served. The result was that many saw and praised God. (See Matthew 15:28-31) The only way he was able to meet those needs and have that impact was to turn his focus outward and be willing to see what’s going on in the lives around Him.

I’ve been reading a string of items on two subjects lately that have saddened me.
The first is a series of posts by Kristen at Walking Circumspectly (Three of them: here, here and here.). I only know her from her blog and I only found my way there from one of my readers. Kristen’s been writing about her experiences in the ICOC in college back in the early 90’s. She was a part of the Atlanta ICOC church for around a month. She calls the ICOC a cult, and frankly I don’t blame her (though I don’t agree). In the month she was a part of the campus ministry there, she was exposed to the worst of the ICOC of those days. The performance mindset, judgementalism, high evangelism expectations, warnings about spending any time with, or even contact, her family and more. I can remember the warnings about my family when I was in campus, and they were in fact scary and intimidating. I too had strong a strong family which saved our relationship (in ways I would only learn of in the past couple of years.)
Her story saddens me for a couple of reasons. First, of course, is the sadness that anyone should come to a church looking for God and be told that to find Him means to abandon the most important folks in your life. All too many over the years have found elitism, arrogance and high expectations instead of grace and forgiveness. To be told that the ICOC was the only church and everyone else was not. She says that the month long experience over 10 years ago still impacts her today.
The other thing that saddens me about it is how one sided it is. I don’t fault Kristen for that, it’s what she knows. After she left, as was common, those who she had thought were her friends didn’t want to talk to her anymore. She was a ‘fall away’, a casualty of the war to save souls. She had made her choice and they had more souls to find. That’s the result of the lopsided, evangelism focused ministry the ICOC practiced. (I am not saying that evangelism isn’t important, just that it is not the most important thing.) She still wanted to know what the ICOC was and to learn more. With no one from the ICOC talking to her to keep her informed, she got her news on the ICOC from anti-ICOC organizations like Reveal. (Frankly, I am speculating here a bit, making assumptions from her posts. Kristen, if you’re reading, please correct me if I’m wrong.)
In contrast, my 17 year experience with the ICOC has been overwhelmingly positive. I have seen much of the things she talks about in her posts, even (shamefully) participated in some. But they did not have the negative impact on me they did on her. Over the years I was able to have an amazing and pure dating life in college (how many guys have a date nearly every week with a variety of wonderful women?), to meet the woman of my dreams, court her and marry her, to have relationships that would help me to become the husband I wanted to be, to help my marriage shine, to help me learn to not stop questioning things, to take sin seriously and seriously pursue repentance and more. My point is not to say, “See Kristen, you’ve got it all wrong.” Rather, I’m saying that my perspective without hers or hers without mine is an incomplete picture of the ICOC. We’ve had our faults and we’ve had our successes. We should look at both.
The second thing that has saddened me lately is both unrelated and completely related. Pinakidion has been writing about the teachings coming from the Portland ICOC church. Portland is where Kip McKean, the former leader of the ICOC, is currently leading. Pinakidion has been chronicling some of the things said and comparing them to things said years ago (Have a read: here, here, here, here and here.) The talk out of the NW (and there’s been a lot) sounds familiar. There’s lots of talk about how many great things they’re doing there in Portland, how folks have been coming from miles around to see how they’re doing it, how they’ve heard the other churches aren’t discipling anymore and have forgotten the mission to evangelize and grow and there’s even been talk of how they’re targeting cities where churches have abandoned discipling and evangelism. Pinakidion points out, and I agree, that it sounds a lot like 1979 all over again.
It makes me sad because I thought, hoped, that we had learned something in the past couple of years of re-evaluating and reconsidering our practices. Perhaps not. Now certainly, Portland does not speak for the whole of the ICOC, but not many are speaking against what is being taught there. I may disagree with Mr. McKean’s teachings and priorities in his message, but I will give him credit for knowing what he believes and speaking passionately about it. He’s an amazing man, with amazing passion and charisma. Where are the charismatic, passionate and outspoken men to make a difference teaching the radical grace and love that Jesus taught rather than works, performance and growth?
It’s sad to see so many papers and apologies written, so many relationships strained or broken, so many churches split and so much hurting over the last couple of years to perhaps end up, collectively, right back where we were. If we do, it will not be because that’s where we decided to go, but instead because we didn’t really decide to go anywhere else.

Go check out this post at the Thinklings. It’s a very profound lesson learned from a door to door saleswoman:

We are granted by God the ability to choose. When we make the right choices early (at the door) there is less regret, less going back to correct, and less buyer’s remorse.
Our hearts are so important. What we allow in them is not to be taken for granted. Be wise, and be careful.

Very wise stuff indeed, go read it.

Douglas Jacoby has an interesting article on Church Discipline posted on his web site. Since the Deacons of the church have spent some time on this and I’ve chronicled that and my thoughts here, I thought I’d link to it here.
It was written in 1994 and revised in 2005. It refers a lot to the practices of the CoC in general and the ICoC in particular. It does however, disagree with those practices and present a good summary of what the Bible says about the subject. The primary scriptures are Matthew 18, Luke 17, Titus 3, 1 Corinthians 5, 2 Thessalonians 3 and 3 John 10 although reference is made to several others.
It’s well worth the read and has caused me to rethink some of my ideas on the subject.

I’ve been thinking more and more about my recent conversation with my minister. My last post focused on my reactions to it. I was more confused and frustrated with church afterwards than I was going in. Later, I prayed earnestly about it and gained some (much needed) perspective from God on it, but I’ve thought more and more about what he said during that lunch.
He shared about his frustrations in getting help. I was critical of his being a one man show and he felt like he’s been trying to get people involved and get their opinions, but has gotten little back. Now, I may disagree on how well he’s sought that input, but I could see how he felt he was and how it was frustrating to him. I realized since then that I’ve been critical of his shortcomings, but I haven’t been trying to help him overcome them like I should. He has weaknesses in terms of communication and confronting people. That’s what I’ve been critical of him for, and rightfully so I think. But I realized that he’s kind of been alone in that folks don’t come challenge him on this kind of stuff much, if at all. If they do speak up, they (like me) may like to complain and attack, but they don’t go to him and confront him on it and work with him to help him change it. When he and I talked, I heard a man who loves God and His church and who’s trying to figure stuff out too. He’s trying to lead, but without a real support system, just folks like me throwing rocks (or talking behind his back). He’s got weaknesses and needs folks to confront them. I’ve apologized to him for my critical heart and I’ve decided to be that person for him.
On a bigger picture, I’ve realized that our church has developed a ‘hands off’ culture. Where we in the ICOC used to be intimately involved with each other, we no longer are. I’ve seen people hurting with no one stepping in to comfort them, stand by them and help them or help them find help. I’ve seen situations where two people have a disagreement, but there’s no resolution. They complain about it to others, sometimes anonymously and sometimes not, but when told to go try to work it out they don’t want to. In other cases, it’s one person seeing the sin of another, complaining about it or even gossiping. But when told to confront the person, they will not go either. In both situations the people involved say that it’s not worth it to confront. It will turn out badly or it hurts too much to deal with. I’ve told brothers before that I’ll go with them, back them up, but they still won’t go. I know that it hurts to think about confronting someone and about how badly it might go, but the damage to individuals and the church his enormous when we don’t. The feelings fester and grow and destroy what God has given us. Worse, it cultivates a culture of judgment, distrust and disunity, all enemies of God’s church.
On the other hand, when we gather up the courage to go and confront a difficult and painful situation, amazing healing can happen. In fact, the outcome is usually so much more than we can imagine that we are left to only stand in awe of God. What was an adversarial situation or a distant relationship can turn into best of friends. What was divisive become uniting. I’ve found that most of the time, when I confront someone who loves God on their sin, they are so amazingly grateful that I cared enough to challenge them that I’m left to wonder why I was so hesitant. They are longing, desperately it seems, to have someone speak the truth to them in love (Ephesians 4). Sometimes it does go badly, and it hurts. But even then, I can be somewhat satisfied and content because I did something.
I wish I knew how to change this culture in my church. I suspect know that there is no magic switch. We can teach on this and instruct people (and need to more, I think), but it will take a decision on each individual’s heart to pursue this change. What I can do is commit myself to lovingly confronting the sin I see in my brother’s life, address the hurts with those who have hurt me and aggressively pursue reconciliation at all times. In that, hopefully I can make a difference.

Tonight I just had to get out. I actually felt it yesterday, but I let things get in the way. I hadn’t done this in a long time, and I was over due. So I left the house from about 9:20 – 9:55 and just prayed.
I haven’t written much about church lately. That’s been deliberate. I’ve been pretty discouraged about it, and I just didn’t know what I could say. Since my last post about 2 month ago, the deacons meetings have stopped. This was after our minister told the deacon’s group that he was the leader, and that he didn’t think that a team approach was the right way to go. He also spoke about needing help, wanting more input from us and others as we went forward. Since that time, we’ve had a couple of meetings together, but nothing recently.
I met with him for lunch on Saturday. I’ve been wanting to get with him for weeks, but couldn’t work it out (and I chickened out). He’s been gone overseas visiting the church we sponsor in Indonesia for about 2 weeks. One of the reasons I haven’t written about this was because I didn’t want to express my feelings publicly until he and I had an opportunity to talk.
So we finally were able to meet on Saturday. After some chit chat, I expressed how I felt that my fears over what he had said back in December about being in charge seem to be coming true. The deacons, in my mind the ones that should be his inner circle, weren’t being included or sought out for advice. It felt that he was just doing his own thing. I knew he wanted input and was probably getting some from somewhere, but it wasn’t from us. As far as official leadership in the church goes, it’s him, the campus minister and the deacons. We have no elders right now, that’s it. We also talked about some other dynamics that have been going on with giving out responsibility and accountability.
After I had said my piece, he expressed to me how this was a complete surprise to him. He had been feeling the opposite – that he was really trying to include people in the decision making. He had been asking for people to give their opinions, but had gotten little response. He had handed out responsibility, but people hadn’t really taken it. He was honestly trying, but felt unsupported. Ouch.
I left that conversation more hurt and confused than I was going in. I had hoped to break some ground, that there would be some recognition of sin and a change going forward. What I was left with was a bigger picture of the weakness in my church. Certainly, I think there are some things that could be done differently to help the situation (which we talked about and he acknowledged), but the magic bullet solution wasn’t there. What I was left with was a picture of a dis-unified, self absorbed, apathetic church. (That does not describe everyone, and is probably over the top, but it was the picture I saw right then.)
I had longed to have this conversation because I had thought that I could then get this off of my chest. That I could relieve the burden I had been carrying. But instead, I felt it even more! I was carrying the weight of the health of the church on my shoulders. I wanted to run and hide.
I should have gotten out and prayed last night, but I didn’t. Tonight, as I snapped at the kids, I knew that I couldn’t put it off. I had tried to pray in my home late on Sunday, but there were too many distractions. There’s nothing like a good walk and talking to God. So off I went.
I cried out to God, I ranted and raved. I asked why? What was the point of it all? What was being a Christian about, anyway? What was I to do? Was it my problem or just my pride to think I had an answer? I just want to serve Him. Was He putting this burden on me or was I taking up of my own? Was it up to me to fix the church? Who was I to think I could fix my church? I began to think maybe I was insane as I walked my neighborhood streets, talking out loud, crying and flipping back and forth emotionally. I asked over and over and over what I was to do with this.
I have this route I walk when I pray. It helps to go the same way every time, then there’s nothing new to distract me from my time with God. I was about two blocks from home and I felt just as burdened and anxious as when I had started. I began to feel like maybe I wasn’t going to get any answers (which made me more discouraged.) May be this wasn’t really me and God after all, maybe it was just all psychological therapy and I wasn’t doing it right. I told God that time was short and I needed help. I had committed myself to Him 17 1/2 years ago and I wasn’t going to give up, but I felt like I didn’t know which way to go anymore, and I couldn’t go on like this. What do you want me to do!?!
Just give yourself to my people
OK. It was weird, it just came to me. And I was peaceful about it, not anxious. (I always look at stories like this as I they’re a bit wacko, but I had been acting a bit wacko, so it’s probably appropriate.)
But what about the leadership?
Just give yourself to my people.
But what does that mean for me as a Deacon?
Just give yourself to my people.
What about…
Just give yourself to my people.
I began to think about the folks in the houses around me, acquaintances. No, I’m not talking about them. Those aren’t your problem or responsibility, let Me worry about them. I can take care of my wife, my kids, my close friends at church, the other deacons, my minister. Beyond that I have neighbors and coworkers; I can take care of them. It all sounds a bit hokey right now, but at that moment it was just what I needed. At that moment, it was the perspective that I needed and brought me peace (Although typing it has made me a bit anxious again. It sounds just plain cheesy.)
I had about a block left to go, so I prayed about those people. I prayed about my girls, that I’d be a better Dad like God was to me. I prayed for my wife, that I could be her partner, teammate, not another kid to care for. I prayed for two couples in church that are in counseling, but largely without the support of friends in the church, that they’d see the best in each other and hang in there. I prayed for my friend who lives far away, far from any church family, in the middle of nowhere, that he and his family would be OK. And I prayed that I’d remember Just give yourself to my people. because I already had started to forget.
And I arrived home with a proper perspective and much less burdened.

(That title ought to get people curious. Don’t panic, read on.)
A couple of weeks ago I came across this post at Radical Congruency which quoted an entire article by Greg Kendall-Ball at the New Wineskins blog. It was about why folks leave the church.
Now in my church family (ICoC) the upheaval in the past two years has been hard. We’ve learned a lot about ourselves and our churches and each other. Some, in response to what they’ve seen, have decided to leave for what they hoped would be greener pastures. In some cases they were long, soul wrenching times of introspection before they left, in others it seemed more spontaneous. In my church we’ve lost I’d guess 20 – 30 members in the past 2 -3 years. In the last year or so, several of those have been my closest friends. They’ve left, to some degree, over issues that I’ve agreed with them on, at least on some level. I’d be lying if I said that the thought that perhaps I too should leave hadn’t crossed my mind. It has even been suggested by some who left, not directly but indirectly, that they thought I would eventually follow those men.
Which brings the question, when is it time to leave? Now for those members of my church reading this, don’t get the wrong idea. I am not planning on leaving, I don’t feel compelled to do so nor do I see myself moving in that direction. I do have some things I am frustrated with, some bigger than others, but I’m not going anywhere right now. Please don’t read into this post anything of the sort. It’s simply a discussion of the issue of leaving a church.
So back to the question, when leave? Or better yet, how do you decide if this is an issue worth leaving over. I can imagine things that would cause me to step down from a leadership role, but to leave to go to another church? I can’t see it. I love these people; I’ve been here in this church from the beginning. I uprooted my family to move here to start this church. So what could be so big that I’d be willing to give it up and move on, starting over with new relationships?
Watching folks I’m close to leave has made me think about it. At times I have felt that it may inevitable that I too leave. The thought made me very sad and depressed. I don’t want to start over, to try to find someplace where I can trust the people. Somewhere I’ll be taken care of and where I can care for people. I think about how sad it would be that one of the founders of the church felt compelled to leave what he had started (That’s already happened. One of those four in my earlier post was one of the founding members of the congregation.) I though why should I leave, I was here first! Where would I go? Move to another city? Would it be better there? All thoughts brought me back to, what would make me go through all that?
That brings me back to Greg’s New Wineskins post. He writes about this thing that seems to plague not only the ICoC, but the CoC’s as a whole. That is the idea that some doctrinal issue or personal disagreement is big enough that a person feels the need to leave. I know that the CoC’s are not alone in this, churches have been splitting since Luther nailed his Thesis to the church door. But we seem to be particularly good at it. Greg lays out the story of a few people who have left the CoC recently, and talks about how sad it is for the church to loose those voices and their insight.
At the end of the article he acknowledges that there is no easy solution, and admits that he has no magic bullet. But then he hits on something profound:

One possible solution (and I am thinking of my family here), is for the church to act more like a family, and less like a country club. In my family we can disagree, we can argue, we can spit and scream and scratch . . . but leaving the family, breaking those bonds, is unthinkable. But in a country club, if I don’t like the new members, or the greens are getting a little rough, I can always take my dues and find a better club that suits me more, or I can push members out or bar others from getting in.

This idea has shaped my thought on this in recent weeks. This is not just an organization I belong to, it’s my church, my family. Family can be a real pain sometimes (family – sorry about that, but it’s true), but you’d never, never, never think about leaving them. You may stay away, even for years, but only in extreme cases of physical or mental danger or abuse would you disown your family. And even then, you’d probably acknowledge that they were your family. Family is permanent, membership is temporary.
If you think about it, that’s how God works with us. We call Him Father, He calls us Sons and Daughters. Jesus is our brother. We are members, not of God’s club, but his household.
So yes, I may have issues with my church. Actually, I will probably always have some. Yes I may even decide I can’t be a part of the leadership at some point due to that. But to leave – this is my family, why would leave and where would I go? It’s possible, but things would have to get real, real bad for that to happen.

Isn’t that the most imaginative title you’ve ever heard? I mean, no one’s ever thought of that before, right?
OK, so it’s not new. If that’s the case, why is it that we seem to forget it on a regular basis?
There are a lot of ways to go with this topic, but I’ll stick to what got me started. I’ve noticed a disturbing pattern, at least in my fellowship of churches. That is, we like to find fault and reasons why someone should be s leader (or in extreme cases, shouldn’t even be in the Church). I’ve heard so many times things like “So-and-so should have never been put in a leadership position because of his pride”. Or, “Given the way he handled that, I’m not sure he should be in leadership.” Now there are certainly reasons to make such judgments, and sometimes folks are too slow in doing so (the Catholic Church certainly could have been more decisive), but it strikes me as a bit foolish how quickly, at least in the ICoC, we have jumped to such conclusions.
I guess I can think of times when leaders’ sin hasn’t been dealt with in a righteous manner. Usually it’s with folks that are in the higher positions of authority. It’s a combination of sentimentality, cowardice (fear to challenge the ‘leader’) and idolizing the leader (he must know better than me, I’m just a nobody) that leads to folks getting a pass on their sin. But what I’ve seen lately is a rush to judgment, a criticalness that is quite unlike Christ. I’m reminded of this scripture, that my brother Pfredy pointed out in the previous post:

Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. – Matthew 7:1-5

The fact of the matter is that we are sinners. It’s something we all know but rarely apply to ourselves. I know that you’re a sinner, and I can tell you your sin, but I have a hard time identifying mine. I can see in brother A his pride, I can see in brother B his deceit, I can see in brother C his quick temper, I can see in brother D … You get the picture. So we start naming reason why folks aren’t qualified to lead. Or, falling short of that, we just throw their sin up in their face when they blow it. We hang them out to dry, leave them blowing in the wind. It hurts people, divides the fellowship and makes Satan smile. Just keep on attacking each other, and no one gets saved, no one gets closer to God.
Frankly, it makes me sick. I’m sick of hearing reasons why someone isn’t good enough, shouldn’t be trusted, is in over their head, etc, etc, etc. Folks, repeat after me: “We’re All Sinners.” Better yet, repeat after Paul: “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners–of whom I am the worst.” (1 Timothy 1:15) or “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.” (Philippians 2:3) Do we really believe that others are better than we are? Do we really think that we are the worst of sinners? I simply think about my own life and the men around me. I can fairly quickly name the main weakness or chief sin of many of these men, but I cannot as quickly tell you what mine is. (Perhaps it’s pride? Ya think?) Oh yeah, so-and-so, he’s quick tempered, and that guy, he’s too sentimental, and this one is pretty pridefull, and that guy – I’m sorry, what? Oh, I nearly smacked you in the head with this plank when I turned around? Gee, I’m sorry. What was I saying? Oh yeah, and that guy ….
My point is, let’s just lay off of each other. Not excuse and ignore sin, but let’s not crucify each other either. Do you want to be crucified? Neither do I, so let’s start handing our grace instead. Speak the truth, yes, but in Love. You know, patience, kindness, no record of wrongs, etc. Sin is serious and should be treated as such, but if we keep beating folks up every time they sin, holding grudges and looking down at them, well, there won’t be any of us left to be in the church let alone lead it. Remember, if Jesus pounced on your sin the way you pounce on others, you’d be in a world of hurt. And the bottom line, if you continue to pounce on folks sin, Jesus promisses that He’ll treat you the same way one day (Matthew 7:1).
Wow, I didn’t expect that to turn into a rant.

Friends of our gave us a new bed and desk for our oldest daughter. It was a set of that frilly white furniture with gold trim, complete with canopy bed (but missing the canopy.) Jessica’s thrilled. After getting it all set up, I loaded her old bed into the Odyssey to take it to the Volunteers of AmericaThrift Store near us. It was about 8:00 PM as I drove into the lot and backed up to the door. The lot was kinda empty so I checked the printing on the door to be sure they were still open. Yep, M-F until 9:00. I flipped up the tailgate to unload and an employee stepped out to gather up the carts in the lot. He informed me that, sorry, he was locking up.
“But it says that you’re open until 9:00.”
“They’re closing early at 8:00 for a couple of weeks.” (I later noticed a paper sign taped to the door).
“So, I can’t even just drop this off?” I made sure my tone indicated how silly that would be. After all, the donations just get set just inside the door that was less than 10 feet from where I was standing. It would only take a second, surely he would oblige.
“Actually, we’re not supposed to take donations past 30 minutes before closing.”
“Really?” My tone had gone from irritated past annoyed strait to angry condescension.
“Sorry.”
“Hmph!” I made a big show of stomping to my van and put all 210 horse power to use across the parking lot. I’m sure that impressed him.
So the next day I made another go at it. It was 7:30-ish as I headed back to VOA. It was then I realized that I may have to face this guy again. Thinking back I felt pretty foolish about the way I had acted and even worse about how I had treated him. This guy was not the sharpest guy in the world. I mean no insult there, it’s just an observation, more a commentary on how folks probably view him. He works at the VOA thrift store and he had a stutter or some other speech impediment. He had long stringy hair and walked slouched over. He probably gets overlooked and treated like dirt all the time. So along comes some middle class white guy dumping his unwanted belongings off and gives him flak. Yikes.
So I pull up, just like before and jump out to unload. And just like before, he shuffles out the door to get the carts. Darn, I was hoping to avoid him. That’s when the voice in my head says “You should apologize.” The thought makes me uncomfortable, I just want to drop off my stuff and go. We exchange hello’s and I unload my stuff. I’m getting done and he’s coming back to the building, meaning I have another chance. I kow I should but it would mean admiting I was wrong. He might think I’m weird. He might yell at me. It’s just awkward. While I’m doing my mental gymnastics trying to avoid doing the good I ought to do, he makes it inside and I’m off the hook.
I walk to the car, disappointed in myself. Why was that so hard to do? I missed an opportunity to right a wrong, to deal with a hurt I had caused. I’m pathetic.
I buckle up and as I begin to drive away, I notice he’s coming back out. I stop and back up, rolling my window down. He walks over to the van.
“I wanted to apologize for the way I treated you last night.”
“That’s OK, I get that kind of thing all the time.”
“Well, that doesn’t make it right and I’m sorry.”
“Well, uh, that’s OK … Thanks for your apology.”
“You’re welcome, have good night.”
“You too.”
I left the lot with less authority this time but feeling much more like Jesus. I hope my actions gave him as big a smile and brought him as much peace as it did me.