Last week my Monday Morning Boost featured and exchange with a woman that resulted in both of us leaving smiling and my concluding exhortation was to be a smile-maker. Well, today I had another encounter, and it was a very different story.
I passed a red Coca Cola truck being unloaded by a man, and I told him how when I was a kid I had once dreamed of driving a red Coca Cola truck. The man not only didn’t respond verbally, but he didn’t even acknowledge my presence. I was 10 feet away from him. No one else was around. There was no traffic noise, and he wasn’t deaf. He just chose to completely ignore me, as if I didn’t exist. A moment later his partner, who had apparently heard me from the other side of the truck, redeemed the situation – somewhat – by extending his arms and saying, quite congenially, “Well, what happened?” I responded, “Well, I guess I just got side-tracked.” That was a God-given response. I didn’t want to in any way make the man feel like I had decided upon a “better” career. It was an instant love thing, definitely from above. But as I walked away, I was still peeved by the first man’s total lack of response.
Now, in complete honesty, rudeness from anyone always irks me, but whenever I encounter unwarranted rudeness from a white person, I always wonder if it is racially motivated, or at least racially influenced. “Did that woman lock her car door when I passed by because I am a stranger or because I am a black stranger.” Did this man ignore me because I was black? Is he a member of the KKK or another White Supremacist group, and driving a Coca Cola truck is his day job? All these thoughts and sentiments flowed through my mind and spirit in a few seconds. But it is where I wound up that is what this boost is all about: I left that scene, not smiling, but satisfied within that I had been true to the person God made me to be, and I felt a surge of God-given affirmation and determination to continue to be so, regardless of the responses of others. In the words of our Lord Jesus: “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them, expecting nothing in return. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful“(Luke 6:32-36).
That episode was a reminder that I do not live for the responses of others, but to please the One to whom I belong. And I am confident He was.
Leave a Reply