Have you every met someone filled with joy? Someone who brightens your day every time you see them? The kind of person where you always feel better after being with them than before? I think we all know people like this.
On the other hand, have you ever me someone exactly opposite this? Someone who is perpetually negative, who can find fault with the most beautiful song, the prettiest flower, the best situation? A person who never fails to sap all the joy and energy out of you?
Well, I met one of those negative people yesterday. In fact, I meet him once a month.
For the sake of this blog post, we'll call him "George." George is my barber.
As a barber, he is great. Excellent attention to detail, very thorough, never knicks my ear with the scissors, etc. But, George is one of the most negative people I have ever met. He has "no use" for most things that normal people enjoy. As you can imagine, this makes for an extremely awkward half hour in the barber chair!
Our conversation yesterday went something like this:
Brian: Hey, George, how have you been!
George: All right.
Brian: So, did you have a good Christmas, George?
George: Survived it. Glad its over.
Brian: Did you have your kids and grandkids over?
George: No. They've got their own families. We've got ours.
Brian: Say, George, do you ever go to downtown Greenville? They've really got it looking nice...
George: No reason to. Nothing they have down there I can't get here at home. Except crowds & traffic.
Brian: So, um, has business been pretty good?
George: Same as always. Work six days a week, standing up all day. Prices go up, but my pay never goes up. ...
Well, you get the idea.
I've given some thought to my encounters with George, and here's what I've come up with:
1. When I get older, I do not want to be a negative, grumpy person. Life is too short! I want to be the positive, joyful, edifying person, the one who makes peoples lives better. Negativity breed more and more negativity, and the result is...well, George.
2. Despite his demeanor, Jesus died for George. Even thought it is very difficult for me to LIKE George, much less LOVE him, scriptures command me to love him. I need to show Christ's love to him. Even if he never changes, I need to be a positive Christian example to him, once a month. Maybe God will even use me to change him...
3. I don't know what George has gone through. Maybe George has suffered a variety of things that, through God's grace, I've never had to endure. It's easy for me to judge, to say "look at what a great person I am compared to this negative man." But maybe God just wants me to offer friendship and encouragement, and not judge his character.
So, if you are the praying type, pray that God will give me the ability to be consistently positive, joyful, and Christlike every month when I go see George. Pray that George will come to know Jesus as his Lord and Savior, that God would change him from the inside out. Pray that Christ will plant a seed of joy in George's heart, and that it will grow wildly and uncontrollably, covering every dry and dusty clump of negativity in his soul.
God is good - let's live that way!
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