Two Interesting Fellows (#10)

I'm going to visit my brother this weekend. I hope to share a bit about what I see and encounter. My wife and kids and I are taking Jeff's wife and kids down for a visit. Now onto the blog.

I want to share a story that opened my eyes. There is a young guy here who is a friend of one of my bunkies. This young guy is always borrowing things from me. He's self-centered, so he never offers anything in return. Unfortunately, I got to the point where I expected something from him. About two weeks ago, he went into my locker and borrowed my scissors without asking anyone. That's a huge faux pas here. The next day he left a coke on my locker. I knew his intent was not to give it to me in exchange for borrowing my scissors, but the next morning, I drank the coke. The guy came by later and wanted his coke. He was really upset. He told some of his friends, one of which started giving me a hard time about my job. Now, my boss has never complained about how I do my job, but this guy had a problem with me. One thing I knew, I was not handling the situation in a Christ-like manner. I shared with my prayer team that I felt that I was under some spiritual attack.

Later that weekend, after praying a lot about the situation, I saw the guy who was harassing me at my job. I had already returned the coke to the young guy and apologized for drinking it, so I had tried to allay that animosity. When I saw the guy who was harassing me, I felt that Spirit saying I should talk to him. So I did. You could tell the guy was expecting a confrontation, but I asked him how long he watered each tree. I told him I would water longer.

This past week I spend extra time watering and working the trees. I believe I've reconciled with both of these guys. Both have been much more cordial. I'm not their friends, but I hope that my behavior did reflect Christ. The informal rules of prison would have exonerated my behavior of drinking the coke, and the advice I got from my bunkies confirmed that. In fact, my bunkies told me that I should cuss the guy out and tell him to mind his own business, not sparing any expletives. I was also justified by legitimate prison rules in drinking the coke. However, there are times when you have to be humble and accept persecution and still do what Christ would do. Although, at times, it may be hard to do that.

Jeff