You Never Know

Working at Midtown Cycles puts me in a position to meet and interact with a  wonderful cross section of people. It also reminds me regularly that "you never know." People's actions are not who they are; they are only outward expressions of their hearts often tainted by fear. Today and for the last week, we have been slammed. Bikes are everywhere, and we are trying to bring new people in as well as keep the ones already there with a small crew in a small facility. I think we are doing a great job, but I'm biased. As we do that, we give estimates of how long a job will take  and charge according to the parts involved and the labor. Our labor cost is $65.00 per hour. Sometimes we make out very well, and other times we don't. If we give an estimated price for an hour, and it takes much longer, which is periodically the case due to the nature of machinery and previous hands that worked on the machinery, we stick by our estimate. Today we had a rear tire, yes, another tire story, that came in botched. It was more or less rigged together, but the driver didn't know that. Therefore, when it would not go back together the way it came apart, he couldn't understand why it was a problem and thought it was the mechanics fault. His first response was unkind, to put it in more lovely terms than the words that came from his mouth. If I never saw that man again after his first response to the job taking longer than expected ( although we were not charging him any more time), I would have felt he was cold,cruel and insensitive. However, as the tire was being worked on time passed; his wife and two small children came by the shop for awhile. I began to let go of my anxiety about him, amazing how the presence of children can change the air, and talked to him like any other customer, and he proudly brought his one month old baby boy into the office for me to see. For a very tightly closed man, he showed a side that was warm and compassionate toward his children and ultimately to me. The whole episode was a very good reminder.

Samuel was reminded of this very thing when he looked at Eliab and thought he would be the newly anointed king because of his outward appearance.
But the Lord said to Samuel, "Don't judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn't see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." 1 Samuel 16:7

Peace. Love, Linda