July 11, 2013

Colossians 3:22-23 — Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God: And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men;

I was in some meetings yesterday, and I have to admit I was disappointed. Some of the people I was with had not really been working well for one of our customers. I let that disappointment show — kindly, and fairly, I think — but still I let them know.
The thing is, they should have done better, and they knew they should have done better … but there were some things that had made it difficult. There were some real things they had to deal with. So what should I have done?
The thing is, I look at things I read in the Bible, and it’s complicated — it’s plain that work is a gift from God to me, and that I’m expected to take it seriously and enjoy he gift, working for the right reasons — and I see all these people not living up to my expectations. Oh, wait … what did I just say?
My expectations. Is that where the problem really lies? I wasn’t brought up in a family setting that created a Protestant Work Ethic (I was a TERRIBLE student!), but somehow I’ve grown one. I’ve become uncomfortable with some of the compromises I see people making — compromises I would have been perfectly OK with earlier in my career, before I became a Christian.
So who made me God? Why am I laying my expectations on other people? I have to keep reminding myself of one of the things Jesus said that really struck home to me: “What is that to you? Follow thou me.” In other words — “You do your job, mind your own business, don’t be a busybody”.
It goes beyond “mind your own business” though, doesn’t it. Christians have the option to do right. Non-christians are still under sin’s control — how can they be expected to do the time? In fact, shouldn’t be a pleasant surprise when they get something right? It’s what all that complicated stuff Paul writes about in Romans 6 about being the servant of whoever you obey. Why am I surprised when people that I know to be slaves of sin are obeying sin? What do I expect?
So what am I supposed to do? I’ve got to do what I’m supposed to do. Sometimes that means being the clean-up squad. Sometimes it means taking on extra work. Sometimes it means explaining to people what I think I’ve seen ,,,, but I’ve got to stop holding other people up to my expectations!