Fun, Fun and More Fun

One of my co-workers told me off, and it wasn't pretty. As a matter of fact, I've had worse days, but not many. One thing he said to me I realized was a mistake I had made and I apologized to him, but evidently that wasn't satisfactory, as he rolled right over the apology without acknowledgement. I didn't need one, but he was just picking up steam. He continued with a barrage of remarks about me and about the way that I do my job as his foreman, and about my character, so much so that I really don't believe that he fully realizes what his words meant to me. I had to end the conversation and walk away, because in my flesh, I was becoming very angry with him because of what he had to say. Except for what I apologized to him for, nothing else he said had any ring of truth to it.

I thought quite a lot about the things he did say, and I came to a realization that he wasn't upset with me as much as that he is insecure about himself. He made an extremely dumb and really weird mistake a few days ago. It was such an obvious mistake that I felt that nothing needed to be said about it. It was over. A couple of days after that, I told him that he was moving too slowly on a project, and I was emphatic about telling him that I wasn't picking on him, but that rather I was teaching him to improve. I think these incidents have been weighing on him and that rather than discuss them with me, that they have built up into something in his mind that he is having trouble handling, so he lashed out.

Most generally work is what you take into it. I'm talking about your average job experience here, and not "nightmare" jobs. "Do everything as unto the Lord" means I should be doing whatever task I'm doing as if I were doing it for Jesus. I think this man is a godly guy, that he loves the Lord, and that he is not a hateful person. All of that is good, but one mustn't allow one's self to be swayed by one's emotions, especially to the point where one's emotions become entangled with half-truths. No amount of passion, spoken with even the greatest conviction, can make up for the truth.

If I were to say that 1 plus 1 equals 6, and I were extremely passionate about it, so much so that I persuaded millions of people to believe it, it still would not be true. I had to exercise a fair amount of discernment when this man lit into me, because he was distorting the truth. If there had been any real substance to what he said to me, my reaction would have been different. I made a real effort to see both sides of the issues that he raised, but he really didn't have a leg to stand on. He deserved the right to be heard though. I just wished at the time that his remarks could have been more constructive.

If his goal was to communicate facts to me, I did not agree with them. To play with the truth is not honoring to Jesus. Instead of trying with all passion to save face, it would be better to pursue truth and cling to it with all our souls. It is unfortunate that godly people can expend so much of their energy to make themselves "feel" better, instead of just facing the truth about themselves and giving it to God, and allowing Him to make the changes in our hearts.

I'll pray about this whole thing, because I really don't have a practical clue otherwise, how to resolve it. He obviously feels that he is justified in his attitude and I really don't know how to reach him. The only thing I know how to do is work hard myself, and give him kind guidance the best way I know how. Other than that, I will probably keep as discreet and polite a distance as I possibly can.