I work with a group spanning sixty plus countries adding up to over twelve-hundred people. They are often grouped by their ages, genders, cultures, preferences, religions, birth-places, martial statuses, and work experiences. For me there are only two groups. Those who work and work hard as a team and those those that complain. The first get results while the latter are always telling you how much he or she has done and why they should be compensated with more money and perks while life gets progressively easier for them. The division can also be described as those who give versus those who take.
I know life isn’t that simple but seems that way as I travel and meet with the various individuals on their own turf. The irony is that you can also see and understand the person before you get the particulars! The first is a friend that is just waiting to be met. The latter is like the cartoon of a nagging spouse. You may have seen the description. It goes something like this.
“A nagging spouse is like the drip, drip, drip of a leaky faucet; you can’t turn it off, and you can’t get away from it.” (Proverbs 27.15, 16)
The challenge is how to react and respond to the person before you. It is not as if you can or should treat individuals like the discovery that you have bad odor. If that was the case the remedy of a good hot shower would be in the answer for most of life’s tough situations! The irony with this observation is that the person I find most offensive in my life is my self! And from this I cannot run or hide, so there must be another answer.
I find the answer to others in how God responds to your life and mine. He knows of the ugliness and junk that floods the nooks of who we are. He hates the bad odor but loves us unconditionally, reaching out to restore us to our full potential. Nobody is a lost cause!
