Evidence

Yesterday God showed up.


I awoke late from the midnight release of Marvel Vs Capcom 3 at the store and was too exhausted to go to the mens lunch Bible Study. I should have gone, but I felt like I could barely keep my eyes open, let alone move, so I decided to go ahead and sleep in.

Missing that spiritual boost for the day, I headed to work without consuming enough of God's Word first. So I was tired, cranky and spiritually hungry. I always ask God to bless the work of my hands and give me favor with my customers and manager, but without the preparation of my soul, I felt my words with God were shallow and without heart.

I went into work only to find us annoyingly busy. We had a ton of stuff to do and my heart and mind were not in the right place. Instead of looking at each customer as a good thing, I saw them as a nuisance. Customers who treated me flatly or ignored me when I spoke to them felt to me as if they were aggressively rude instead of just disinterested. I, of course, corrected their behavior with my own carefully calculated, jabbing comments which only furthered to hurt sales for the day effectively making me even MORE stressed out.

As I shift through this time of transition at the store, I'm trying to keep up high performance and numbers to guarantee the promotion I need so desperately, so yesterday felt like an attack on my entire immediate future.

As you can probably deduce, this was all in my head. My manager was in a good mood, the store was doing fine, my future was not in danger at all- I just had this overwhelming sensation that the world was attacking me and so I was seeing everything through that panicked lens.

At about 30 minutes to close when I finally had my break, I decided to just stop. Well honestly I believe God was yelling into my mind, telling me to stop, and I finally listened.

I realized in that moment of quietness that nothing else mattered. Not my store, not my job, not my annoying customers- just this. This quietness with God. After a few moments, He started recanting the following truths in my life;

I am a son of God,
I have a family who loves me no matter what,
I have been given this job,
my manager has already spoken to me about my promotion and likes me as a person,
the sales that I get are only temporary and all I can do is do my best,
and each customer is an opportunity to love a new person regardless of how they act.

I walked back out into the store feeling like a different person. Freedom from worry is one of the biggest blessings we have as
Christians and I don't choose to enjoy it enough. The rest of the evening was completely different. I had good customers, was in a good mood and actually enjoyed the rest of my time working.

But thats not where God actually showed up to me.

I got home and had been listening to a Mars Hill podcast about the Resurrection and was completely uplifted when I noticed on my phone that I had a message on FaceBook from a lady at church. Her note read that she "felt impressed by God to write to you tnight to tell you how much you mean to our church and my family." She continued on to encourage me in who I was and how she hopes God keeps me at Northside because of how much she loves me and knows God works through my life.

Somehow, a lady across the city that I only talk to one a week, felt I needed to be reminded of God's work in my life and wanted to encourage me at the EXACT TIME that I needed it. NO ONE KNEW I WAS HAVING A BAD DAY. I hadn't whined to anyone yet and somehow this lady said the exact words I needed to hear.

That's evidence of a real, loving, and really good God.