I love Starbucks. It's one of my favorite treats on my way to an early morning destination. One morning, I stopped to go through a Starbucks drive-thru to get my fix and I had an experience I won't soon forget. Now, the parking lot had several entrances, so there were two possible avenues to enter the drive thru. I was in line, but not all the way up to the ordering screen when an SUV came up from the other direction. At first, I didn't think it would be a problem. I mean, I was there first, he saw me and he would just get into line behind me after I had moved my van completely into the path of the ordering screen, right? Wrong.
I'm pretty sure the gentleman saw me, but he moved his SUV into a position that made his intention clear - he was going to cut in front of me. I. saw. red. (In Southern, that means I got mad!) I gunned the engine, yanked that gear shift into drive and jerked forward before he had time to move an inch. Was that enough for me? Nope. I turned my head in his direction and explicitly mouthed the words, "I was here first!" Hmph. I gave myself an inner high-five and chuckled at the absurdity of the injustice this man was about to commit and how proud I was that I had stopped it! Anyone care to guess how long that party lasted? Well...... um....... :0)
I would love to say that the Holy Spirit began to speak gently to my heart, but I really want to be genuine here, okay? The Holy Spirit CHEWED on my hiny for the next five minutes and they were the LONGEST of my life! My momma used to say the Holy Spirit was a gentleman, but well, this day, He seemed more like a dad who was about to wup me!
Sigh. I knew what had to be done. I pulled up to the window and gave over my bank card. With a down-trodden face and a sheepish tone, I began to tell the clerk of my encounter. She listened very respectfully while I explained my behavior and asked would she please add whatever the total of their order was to my bill and tell them how sorry I was. Thankfully, she didn't laugh at me, but rather nodded her head (almost as if she already knew) and said, "Yes, ma'am." As I pulled away from the window and into the busy morning traffic, I could barely lift my head, so great was my conviction. So glad I did... As I looked up, the woman in the passenger seat had rolled down her window and nearly hung herself out the window waving and mouthing "Thank you!" over and over. Unless my eyes deceived me, I'm pretty sure I saw tears too...
I've never seen those folks again, but I've often wondered if the Lord was able to do anything with my behavior? You know, was He able to take my mess of an ungodly reaction, conviction and obedient attempt at earthly restitution and use it toward His glory? Might just be wishful thinkin' on my part, but I'm certainly not perfect (and the above is a wonderful example of that) and I can only hope and pray that the Lord will take my mistakes and somehow turn people's eyes toward Him, you know part of that whole "work" thing that comes with salvation... ;0)
"Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling," - Philippians 2:12
No comments:
Post a Comment