I was telling my daughters last week about a sermon I’d heard years ago. A gentlemanly Southern Preacher was speaking at the church we were attending at the time. He was talking about a person’s reputation – about how important it is to conduct yourself in a respectable way…NO MATTER WHAT THE SITUATION. He made the point that anyone can be at their best when the going’s good, but when the going’s bad (even if it’s just a little bad) it takes a strong person to not go bad with it.
He told a story from his own life to illustrate the point. Early in his ministry, when he was really young and had just started his own church, this preacher was having dinner at a restaurant with an older preacher, his mentor. The waitress (tired and near the end of her shift) was pouring their drinks and accidentally poured some on this southern preacher’s pant leg. He said that he sprang up, and angrily shot off a few expletives. He said the waitress hurried off, embarassed and on the verge of tears. When he looked across the table at a man he’d respected for years, he saw, not anger or embarassment in his eyes, but pain.
The older man leaned over toward the younger man and whispered, “Now try to invite her to your church. Think she’ll listen? Would she believe you were a Christian, let alone a preacher?”
He said the older man’s words really hit home. He got up from the table, apologized profusely to the waitress and laughed as he said he’d never before or since left such a tip! He summed his story up, no longer laughing, by saying how much her expression hurt when he told her that he was a Christian and, thereby, certainly should have known better.
He said he’d never seen such a shocked expression in his life. Judging from the pain in his eyes, I feel for certain he still sees that expression today.
We should all try extra hard, especially when “things go bad” to represent ourselves with the class, composure and character that we want to be associated with. We can work a lifetime for respect that a few minutes can take away. We should strive to bring honor to our beliefs, our job, and our family name and conduct ourselves in a way that we never have to hang our heads. We should live in a manner that saying any or all of the following wouldn’t elicit a look of shock: ”I’m a Christian….,” or “I run my own business….” or “I’m a highly respected member of my community,” or “I’m a loving mother/father…”
Far better to conduct ourselves in a way that, upon announcing one of the above, we’d hear, “I thought so!”
Joi
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