HUSH

How easy the dialogue of complaint dominates the tongue. It is so overpowering in terms of stirring our fires of hate. We can slip so subtly into a frame of thought where the world is painted in a hue of angst that is totally without any rainbows or hope.

Being unhappy with some aspect of life is a common problem. Life is imperfect and it doesn't in any way keep us from dreaming for otherwise. And when the two extremes collide we get frustrated and angry.

Some things are easy to solve than others. Dealing with people to me is not that easy a problem to solve. Too often people don't do what they promise. Oh they always have their reasons, but in the end the reality is we lied.

I didn't say people admit it, but they do. And one of the ways a person copes with such lies is to not contact the person when they break a promise. That way you only have to lie to yourself.

Over the last few months my wife and I have been involved with a project that has brought us into contact with a number of people we have hired to perform certain tasks. Now what is amazing is that all we want is the person to do the work that we hire them to do for the price they asked. We aren't asking them to do more or in anyway cheating them out of money. All we desire is they keep their promise of doing what they said they would do.

However what we have found is that almost without exception, whether they claim to be a Christian or not when it comes to keeping their promises it simply doesn't happen. They either don't do what is promised or only do it very poorly.

So it becomes a constant vigil of having to monitor their behavior till they finally do what they were suppose to do. And I can't help being grieved over such rampant state of unfaithfulness by people who have no apparent ethics.

It isn't like I'm perfect, but I do like to think that if I make promise, God knows of what I said and will hold me accountable for it. Apparently that doesn't hold true in some other cases.

So in the ensuing frustration it is easy to slip into a dialogue of feeling sorry for oneself. On one particular night I was feeling extra depressed and during my prayer time poured out my heart to the Lord.

Then the first thing that came to me was simply to "shut up." Basically, that if I would stop whining long enough to listen, God would show me what was his will for the situation.

And when I did that, he did show me the path I was to follow. It gave me a special peace that he would see us through the crisis in due season and would exact his judgment on those who had wronged us. Sometimes that is enough even if we don't enjoy the process of hush since we can't control it.