We had a message on integrity recently at church, plus I've been writing a bit on integrity at home. Its funny how the Lord drops things into our lives to show us the disconnect between our head knowledge and our hearts at just the right moments in just the right way to make the point stick.
Today he did that with a cookie. That's right, a cookie taught me something today -- probably a couple of things in reality. Sometimes we're a little dense and need something as clever as a dessert snack to impart knowledge and bring growth. The main lesson brought through one stupid cookie? Don't even leave the door open a tiny crack for your integrity to be compromised. I did, and it grieved me.
Here's what went down. I went out to lunch with the family today. The girls wanted cookies. I wanted a cookie. They got two cookies with their meals, total. I got zero cookies. So I went to the bakery counter and ordered three cookies and asked how much the third one would be. "Seventy one cents" replied the nice woman behind the counter. Then she handed me my cookies and said don't worry about that last one.
Uh oh.
At the time I reacted in a fairly stupid way. "Are you sure that's okay?" "Yes." "Really?" "Yes." "Thank you, have a good day."
That's where I went wrong. I got back to the table and said to Jamie "You think its okay for her to give these away?" "Probably not." D'oh. Now I had a situation on my hands. My natural man tried to rationalize it. Because I was allowed to give things away when I worked in the deli, maybe she was allowed to give cookies away. That wouldn't do. I was the night manager. She wasn't the manager. She didn't have authority in the place.
So what did I end up doing? Not wanted to embarrass her -- or at least that's what I told myself, the truth of that may be suspect given our deceptive hearts -- I went back inside and asked the manager if it was okay for her to do that. Even then I screwed up the story. The way I said it sounded like she gave me the third cookie without asking for three! He briefly double checked what I was asking and said that's fine, but his eyes told a different story. I can't read people very well, but either he thought I was insane, or it really wasn't okay and this lady's going to get in trouble.
Not a good situation either way. Maybe the woman gets in trouble at work. Maybe I look like a bad witness to the manager for even accepting the stolen goods, especially after talking to him about the Lord not a half an hour before! I definitely didn't enjoy the cookie as I should have with a clean conscience. It was a completely rotten event that's been bothering me until now. But since all things do work for good for those of us who love God and are called according to his purpose, it sure gives me a way for me to remember in the future not to even open the door up a tiny smidge when dishonesty knocks.
And all this over a stupid cookie.
But then, its not really about the cookie, is it?
Grace and Peace
3 comments:
Some weeks ago, I went back into the grocery store to pay for the gallon of milk I had put in the bottom portion of my cart, but forgot to swipe with the rest of my groceries. I didn't realize my omission until I got out to the car. The amount of confusion that my truthfulness and honesty caused in the front of that store was amazing. The lady at the cash register didn't understand what I was saying. "You want to return it?", she asked. "No, I didn't pay for it--it was in the bottom of the cart". She looked at me blankly and sent me to the customer service desk who then had to call the manager up. He finally understood that all I wanted to do was pay for the milk I had forgotten to pay for. They were all shocked that I actually came back in to pay the $3! Isn't amazing that honesty and integrity is such a foreign concept that it took me 4 people to understand it! But I feel that God used me and that gallon of milk that day to teach those 4 a lesson....and imagine the amount of people they probably told it to as the day went on and when they got home. Pretty cool, huh?
I get the lesson....but as a fan of cookies---the two words 'stupid' and 'cookie' together make me shudder. = )
Quite the story! Thanks for sharing.
"Kids this weird lady came back in the store today because she didn't want to steal the milk!" :-)
The timing of this thing was funny. There I am listening to Ken talk about integrity and I'm thinking "I GOT this, no problem, I'd do X, Y, and Z in those little situations."
Then God says "hey, dude, the evidence based on your reactions suggest its not deep enough in there yet." :-)
Ttyl.
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