Snubbed

I had been listening to a sermon that discussed that we had “cracks in our soul.” And out of His great love God will reveal these cracks. God reveals them not to shame us but so we can repair them—with His help.  Sounds nice in theory, right?  It is amazing to me how He can use the most ordinary ways to show us profound spiritual truths.

I was minding my own business this week, time on my hands to “be a blessing to someone else”, and then it happened.  Right in the middle of my shopping I ran into someone I knew (quite well at one point) and I got snubbed.  The person could barely say hello and I said it twice, thinking he didn’t hear me. Now I sort of look up to this person and I walked away with many “reasonings.”  Such as, could there have been something I said in the past that created that reaction?  Was there some huge obstacle on his mind?  Maybe he heard something?  Maybe he didn’t like me?  Maybe he can’t do two things at once?  Maybe I caught him off guard?  And on and on the “reasonings” went.  Left to my own imagination it is a pit without end.  After walking away and feeling bad I got what I felt was a snub by the cashier, too.

I thought, okay now this has got to stop.  I’m not going to ruin my whole day because someone in my opinion snubbed me for a reason unbeknownst to me.  But I didn’t know how to change the channel, so to speak. The crack in my soul has been revealed and God wanted to repair it.  As I left the store and drove away feeling bad, reasoning why I should let it go, I could not.  I prayed an honest prayer to God telling Him I wanted to let this go and asked Him to show me how to turn this from a crack in the wall of my soul to an area that was fortified from further attack.  It sounded really spiritual. In the meantime I was going to be as nice as possible to everyone I saw while I ran the rest of my errands.  I didn’t really see anything changing but I was more aware of other people than simply my hurt feelings. 

I stopped at a garage sale and there was a sweet little girl selling popcorn and lemonade. I always heard you should never walk away from a lemonade stand without purchasing something. So I bought some popcorn, she was really easy to be nice to, just a sweet little thing.  I got in my car to leave and just then a man drove up in a rusty old boat type of car, like an 80’s model. It was white but had just as much rust on it as paint.  I caught a glimpse of the man driving and he looked just like the man who snubbed me.  Now the man who snubbed me would not be driving an older model anything!  The man who snubbed me lives in luxury.  As I drove away I tried to see this man more clearly but because of trees, other cars and turns in the road I never got another look at him.  

This is what I believe God was showing me.  I was looking at the exterior of the man who snubbed me, I was looking at his physical, economic status and God was showing me his spiritual side.  Scales fell from my eyes that day and instead of feeling bad for me, I’m truly praying for him.  The “reasonings” make no difference. What God showed me was that this man is living with an old, barely getting by spiritual existence. As a defense mechanism, whether he knows it or not, he appears to be put together on the outside.  That is religion as we know it in a nutshell. 

I’m glad I felt snubbed, really I am, it made me aware to pray for him.  And not only that, it made me aware that each of us has a spiritual side, a spiritual car we drive around so to speak, and God sees it clearly.  Oh Lord, give me your eyes to see, not so that I can see how I stack up to my neighbors, but to build up and not tear down. 

That crack in my soul, it will likely get attacked again and next time I’m looking forward to it knowing I’ve made great progress.  This great memory of mine that I used for years to record the rights and wrongs of people, well, I sure am glad God has shown me a better use for it. Recalling how He has taught me what is truly important, this is the way to unity.