Trials at Walmart

Every week I preach about peace, patience, love, and a attitude that mirrors that of Jesus Christ. However, every week I also find myself at the local Walmart department store where these very qualities are being tested!

First off, I hate to shop, not because I don't have time to shop, but because shopping is not enjoyable. So, unless I am in need of something specific I will not be out shopping. Further, if I am in need of something specific I will head for the closest parking spot and take the quickest and most direct route to the product I am in need of and then take the quickest and most direct route out.

Combine this general hatred of shopping with a department store where the isles are barely wide enough to fit two carts side-by-side, a department store that has built a niche of "end caps" - meaning that the narrow isles are all that much narrower, and a department store where, on average, one checkout lane is open for every six people desiring to "checkout", and my peace, patience, and love begin to fade way.

Then, you top this off with the numerous people you will encounter on a typical trip to Walmart - not to pick on any particular group of people - and I have quite a bit of trouble mirroring an attitude like that of Jesus Christ.

• Just the other day I watched someone push their cart directly into a parked car, shrug their shoulders and then walk off.
• Last year I saw a woman spit in a man's face before getting in her car and driving away.
• Yesterday I woman was walking in the crosswalk as I sat waiting, she stopped and stared at me, threw her hands in the air and yelled "what are you looking at?".
• A month or so ago I came upon a guy working on his car in the middle of the parking lot, in the middle of an isle - I had to cut turn around and go out the wrong way because he blocked the entire isle.
• Some time back a group of kids on Razor scooters came out of nowhere and I almost picked one of them off.
• Once I saw three teens laying in  the middle of the parking lot after dark - two of them wearing black shirts.
• I can go on, and on, and on...

I believe - half-joking here - that Walmart is what Satan uses to tempt me and to try me in the way I respond to others. Several times my wife has had to remind me that I am a Pastor in this town and - on any given Sunday - the people that I encounter at Walmart could walk into our church.

So what do I do? Rather than getting frustrated in the isles or the checkout lane of Walmart, rather than yelling at or injuring some of the people in the Walmart parking lot, I simply send my wife!

Make It Right Now...Not Later

There are two questions that I ask this time every year, maybe you have similar ones;

"What are you going to start doing in the new year?"

"What are you going to stop doing in the new year?"

• I ask these questions of myself. 
• I ask these questions about our family. 
• I ask these questions of our church leadership. 
• I ask these questions of as many people as I can in regard to as many situations as I can. 

In years past these two questions have helped me to get to the heart of what must happen in the year that lies ahead. This morning I sat to reflect on these two areas and to evaluate how I did - personally, as a husband, as a father, and as a church leader. And that's when it hit me, there is a huge problem with these two questions. 

When we sit to evaluate a situation - whether it be a relationship, an attitude, or an action - whether it relates to our life, our family, our home, or our career - if we come to the conclusion that something must start or stop, we must do it immediately! 

The problem with starting something or stopping something in the new year is that we have such a broad time frame to correct it. So this new year's eve, I am changing my questions and will be asking;

"What are you going to start doing today?"

"What are you going to stop doing today?"

Don't aim to make things right in 2013, aim to make them right now!