Patience, Confidence

Ever been quick to claim a major change in life as a gift from God? Then you become unsure if it is really a gift –moreover if it’s from God. I’m feeling that enormously at work. I have been appointed to a position that I freely accepted without out much praying about it (as it fell in my lap). Granted, I was praying for a better job. So when the offer came I was thankful. My head was calculating the gains, picturing me succeeding and busy proving to my heart that God wanted this for me.

It has been a gain. The pros totally outweigh the cons. But the “meat and potatoes” of my title is to catch a thief. Moreover, to do it in a way that adheres to the company’s policy. Training was extensive for this reason. The boss of my boss even supports and encourages me asking about my technique and sympathizing with the time it takes to catch the first one.

All that being said, I’m plagued with impatience; riddled with roaming the retail floor trying to suspect everyone. The longer I follow the merchandise, the more I forget to pretend shop. I have a route around the store much like blood in the chambers of the heart. It’s easy to loose awareness after the fiftieth lap. I’m still training my eyes and ears while the internal dialog is loudly assessing behavior. This job is so much harder than what outsiders think (for that matter, what I though of it as a uniformed security guard).

I’ve been successful at watching thieves yet restricted by procedures to apprehend. This week seems to be the metal breaking point where impatience gave way to failure. Where I have compromised process for results and could have lost my job on two different occasions. I recovered the stolen items but not correctly. Why can’t I trust in God to create the correct circumstance?

Some byproducts of this disposition include: doubt that God’s will is at work, fear that I will fail and pressure to lose patience. At work I can let it roll off of me, by going through the motions. The effort is there I just get blurred. I love what I do the results have yet to show that. I pray for apprehensions daily.

When I got home today, a feeling of depression, exhaustion and failure gripped me. This has become an exception rather than the rule to my life (Thanks to the yoke of Jesus). So those ugly habits (sin by intent) like overeating, sleeping and escaping into a movie showed up. I realized what I was doing. I stopped and just prayed about it. Was it my job leading me to this state? Is catching “bad guys” a gift God had in store for me? Killer doubt for sure.

So when I turned to my latest lesson in my Bible study, how fitting was it that it centered on the last days of John the Baptist and his circumstance of doubt. Matt 11:1-10. My study guide pointed out that given all the glorious promises of being a provided-for child of God, we often think that our lives should be easy. The glory of knowing Jesus is intertwined with the privilege of suffering with Him.

I don’t think that this only applicable if you are evangelizing/prophesizing as John the Baptist was. It is part of the faith walk -no matter the vocation on earth. That is why I bring all my confusion and questions about thief catching to Jesus. He alone knows my reasoning powers and can pair it up to my situation.

Thinking about all this makes me value confidence. I think Jesus must have oozed confidence as an earthling, in how He responded to people, shunned Satan and endured God’s will to the death. Amazing model when I’m so quick to tell myself: “Nic you can even do what you get paid for.”