It's sometimes difficult
As I stood in the checkout line this morning, I noticed two things: one was a very attractive woman in front of me. The other one was a very distraught woman employee of the store I was shopping at. One of them caught more of my attention than the other.
As I stood there, I didn't watch the woman unload her cart (but boy the God of all Creation made that one pretty!). My attention was toward the woman working at the store. I saw her put her hands to her head and bend down while she faced the shelf she was working on. She had one of those little computer gadgets she was pretending to look at. If she wasn't crying, she was close. At one point, I saw her take her left hand and swat at something on the shelf out of utter frustration.
There are times when I think it appropriate to approach a stranger and ask if there's something you can do and this, I think would have been one of those times. Here's why I didn't...
I'm a guy.
Had I been a woman, then you bet....in a minute. But I'm a guy and God has a plan for me and sometimes that gets lost in the fact that today's not the day it's coming to me. There are struggles to fight, like noticing the attractive woman in front of me at the store. Who kept looking at me. I noticed that, too. She kept glancing up at me while she was unloading her buggy. I was keeping my distance, trying not to look her direction. Job had some strong words of wisdom about keeping the covenant with your eyes....(even thought I'm technically single, I'm committed to the plan God has for me!) but you notice things.
You never know what other peeps are going through and even though I'm having a tough time with the wait today, I'm not the only person with stuff. My cross isn't the only heavy one. Out of an abundance of caution, though, I decided prayer from afar would have to don. I'm torn about that because maybe all she needed at that moment was someone to just tell her it was going to be all right. I asked God to send someone to do that who was more suited to that task than I would have been this morning.
Did I miss an opportunity to share the gospel? Maybe. Not everything is prudent and sometimes you have to look at where you're at and make a decision based on that. Wisdom sometimes dictates that the best way to intervene is with prayer. I've been in situations like that before, where the best thing you can do is let things alone and just pray for a good outcome for someone.
But the thing is this, at least I noticed. Nobody else did, that I could tell. And maybe, whatever struggle she's having today will be rectified by a prayer for her a stranger prayed on her behalf. I hope so.
Like I said, it's sometimes tough to know what the right thing to do is. I think though, that in this case maybe I did the right thing.
As I stood there, I didn't watch the woman unload her cart (but boy the God of all Creation made that one pretty!). My attention was toward the woman working at the store. I saw her put her hands to her head and bend down while she faced the shelf she was working on. She had one of those little computer gadgets she was pretending to look at. If she wasn't crying, she was close. At one point, I saw her take her left hand and swat at something on the shelf out of utter frustration.
There are times when I think it appropriate to approach a stranger and ask if there's something you can do and this, I think would have been one of those times. Here's why I didn't...
I'm a guy.
Had I been a woman, then you bet....in a minute. But I'm a guy and God has a plan for me and sometimes that gets lost in the fact that today's not the day it's coming to me. There are struggles to fight, like noticing the attractive woman in front of me at the store. Who kept looking at me. I noticed that, too. She kept glancing up at me while she was unloading her buggy. I was keeping my distance, trying not to look her direction. Job had some strong words of wisdom about keeping the covenant with your eyes....(even thought I'm technically single, I'm committed to the plan God has for me!) but you notice things.
You never know what other peeps are going through and even though I'm having a tough time with the wait today, I'm not the only person with stuff. My cross isn't the only heavy one. Out of an abundance of caution, though, I decided prayer from afar would have to don. I'm torn about that because maybe all she needed at that moment was someone to just tell her it was going to be all right. I asked God to send someone to do that who was more suited to that task than I would have been this morning.
Did I miss an opportunity to share the gospel? Maybe. Not everything is prudent and sometimes you have to look at where you're at and make a decision based on that. Wisdom sometimes dictates that the best way to intervene is with prayer. I've been in situations like that before, where the best thing you can do is let things alone and just pray for a good outcome for someone.
But the thing is this, at least I noticed. Nobody else did, that I could tell. And maybe, whatever struggle she's having today will be rectified by a prayer for her a stranger prayed on her behalf. I hope so.
Like I said, it's sometimes tough to know what the right thing to do is. I think though, that in this case maybe I did the right thing.
Comments
Post a Comment