CLEAR SKIES, BLURRED EYES

I’ve been dealing with this one person who is an ardent advocate of positivism. This involves a business relationship that I have to enter into for a variety of reasons.

Basically this is a very nice person in many ways, but one who suffers from two obvious maladies. Number one is the inability to separate out when being upbeat as a prediction is different from being upbeat as a statement of fact. While this individual means well the big problem is that staying that “everything is going to be okay” as a fact just doesn’t work if you are hundred per cent wrong.

The other area this person suffers in is in terms of being able to admit when a mistake is made. Instead of simply saying something like “I’m sorry, I was mistaken” the individual always ends up claiming the root cause of such a error was due to somebody else.

This is a person who reasons that if you do something good for someone it always will be remember far more than when you do something wrong or that causes somebody else harm. It is a regrettable fantasy that only leaves this person totally dumfounded on why in this person’s view people end up being far too ungrateful. The individual will sit and regale me with the things the person did to help somebody and never in any way grasp the idea that in midst of all those nice things you constantly mistake the facts and cost somebody a great deal of financial burden they aren’t likely to say thank you.

I have continued to work with this person because I felt that was the Lord’s will for the situation. And I know the Lord’s spirit has helped me to understand that our goal in this venture will be completed. For me this has been a test of my shortcomings in terms of compassion and tolerance. So I appreciate the value it places on me.

At the same time I have come to understand the sadness of how for this person the self view of being a good person so hopelessly colors that individual’s capacity to see the truth of the sin that occupies the person’s life. It is to be at the heart one who clings to the delusion that our goodness in any way helps us to earn out salvation.

I have tried in my own subtle way to try and listen and not do too much to complicate this heavy spiritual burden of denial that dominates the individual’s life. It is for me seeing grace through a new light. One that appreciates how God must be so longsuffering with our frailties.

In this case, the person does claim to be a believer. Sadly the individual is a member of a particular brand of Christianity that I personal know doesn’t make salvation by faith the criteria for salvation. I only hope that in our time of relationship God will perhaps work a miracle to allow this person to see Jesus truly as savior.

That I must like so many things leave in God’s hand. And to rejoice over the light God grants me from each encounter in life when I manage to keep my soul’s eyes focused as he would desire.