ALL OUT WAR AT WORK - - -
Years ago I worked in a large store with over 300 employees. Truly, there were only a handful of us who were Christians at this store. One of the few Christians was April. April was very open about her Christianity and would tell others about Christ at every opportunity.
April was moved to a different part of the store to work with a new manager in that area of the store, Matthew. Matthew was everything that April was morally against. He was brash, he was openly crude, openly rude and sexually all over the board and very much in April’s face about it. April was everything that Mathew hated, she was proper, she was moral, she was religious and April made darn sure Matthew knew that she was right and he was wrong.
It was all out war. These two people fought openly at every meeting. They accused each other of petty crimes, they pelted each other with insults. April repeatedly told Matthew he was “going to hell”, to which Matthew would always reply, “I’ll see you there honey”.
No one wanted to be around them. We were sure they both would be fired soon.
The comment I heard quite often was, “If April is anything like what a Christian should be, I don’t want anything to do with Christianity.” April had become Moses, what was a golden opportunity to live as a Christian she made about herself, she had made what should have been about God – about herself…..
Then, early one morning the phone rang at April’s home. It was Mathew, he needed to talk. April, wasn’t sure what to say, so she agreed top meet, sure this was some ploy to get her out of his area of the store.
Matthew had just received word that his mother had terminal cancer. April was the only person he could talk with, because, because, she somehow knew who God was. Matthew wanted to pray with April for his mother.
April told me that, that was the moment that the scales fell from her eyes. For months she thought that Matthew had been a curse to make her life miserable. She thought she had to fight this man tooth and nail. But in reality, God had placed Matthew in her life so that He could work in Matthew’s life. And here all along April, who was supposed to be an instrument of God, was just getting in the way.
You know, it was strange seeing April and Matthew get along. It was weird seeing them yuk it up – everyone noticed, we couldn’t help it. You know what everyone was saying around the store? They said, “Only an act of God could make this happen”.
Holy Moses, they were right.