What Does It Take To Be Great In The Eyes Of God? Series

 God will tell us, "Well done, good and faithful servant!"

 Doesn’t that put all the little things you do in a different light?

John C Miller in his book The Question Behind the Question tells the following story:

It was a beautiful day in downtown Minneapolis when John Miller stopped into a Rock Bottom restaurant for a quick lunch. The place was jammed. He didn’t have much time, so he was happy to grab the one stool they had available at the bar.

A few minutes after he sat down, a young man carrying a tray full of dirty dishes hurried past on his way to the kitchen. Noticing John out of the corner of his eye, he stopped, came back and said, "Sir, have you been helped?”

"No, I haven’t," John replied, but all I really want is a salad and a couple of rolls."

"I can get you that, Sir, what would you like to drink?"

"I’ll have a Diet Coke, please." "Oh, I’m sorry, Sir, we sell Pepsi, Would that be all right?"

"Ah, no thanks," John said with a smile. "I’ll just have water with lemon, please."

"Great, I’ll be back." He disappeared.

Moments later he came back with the salad, rolls and water, John thanked him and he was quickly gone again, leaving John to enjoy his meal, a satisfied customer.

Suddenly, there was some activity off to John’s left and then over his right shoulder stretched the "long arm of service," delivering a bottle of cold Diet Coke!

"Wow!" John said, "Thank you!"

"You’re welcome," he said with a smile as he hurried off again.

John’s first thought was, "Hire this man!" Talk about going the extra mile! He was clearly not your average employee. The more John thought about the extraordinary thing he had just done, the more he wanted to talk to him. So as soon as he could get his attention, John waved him over.

"Excuse me, I thought you didn’t sell Coke," John asked.

"That’s right, Sir, we don’t"

"Well, where did this come from?"

"The grocery store around the corner, Sir." John was taken aback, and asked, "Who paid for it?"

"I did, Sir, just a dollar."

"Come on, you’ve been awfully busy, How did you have time to go get it?"

Smiling, he said, "I didn’t, Sir, I sent my manager!"

John couldn’t believe it. Was that empowerment or what? It was the lunch rush. He was already busy with plenty to do. But he noticed a customer who, though not in his section, looked as though he needed some attention, so he decided to do what he could to help. I don’t know what was in his mind at that moment, of course, but faced with a similar situation, many people would have had thoughts like these:

- Why do I have to do everything around here?

- Who’s supposed to be covering this area, anyway?

- When is management going to provide us with more products?

- Why are we always so shorthanded?

- When are the customers going to learn to read the menu?

As John left that day, John gave him an the excellent tip he deserved.

And when he returned a couple of months later and asked for his favorite server, Jacob Miller the hostess said, "I’m sorry, Sir, but Jacob is no longer…” John’s thoughts flew fast, “No!” He just couldn’t believe they had let him get away. He blurted out, “Oh no, you lost him?” to which she brightly responded, “Oh, no Sir, we didn’t lose him. He was promoted to management.”