Tom Barnard

“God loves you and has chosen you…So be gentle, kind, humble, meek, and patient.

Put up with each other, and forgive anyone who does you wrong,

just as Christ has forgiven you. Love is more important than anything else.”

(Colossians 3:12-14 The Promise)

I ended up in the wrong check-out line at Wal-Mart yesterday. I got in line at Register #9. There were several people ahead of me. I failed to notice that Register #9 was for shoppers that had 20 items or less. I hadn’t counted mine, but I knew I had more than 20 items. Here I was, already lined up—in the wrong line. I looked over at the adjacent lines. They were all full, backed up to the main aisle. Embarrassed, I stayed put. No one said a word. When I got to the register, I apologized to the clerk as she prepared to ring up my purchases. She said, “That’s okay; your items are small.” How kind of her. She could have said, “Sir, can’t you read?” Her kindness instantly put me at ease. The people in line behind me could have been rude; they weren’t. Were they all Christians? I don’t know. But they acted like it. They were what Paul admonished the Colossian Christians to be—“gentle, kind, humble, meek, and patient.”

The most frantic shopping days of the year are just ahead. People’s nerves will be rattled. The human in us allows us to be impatient and unkind when some shopper picks up an item we want, or a self-preoccupied buyer moves their big cart into the 20-item register line just ahead of us. How we deal with it will determine the day they are having.

Heavenly Father, thank you for reminding me that rudeness is not a gift of the Spirit. Thank you for letting me see kindness in the face of the clerk at the cash register. Thank you for demonstrating to me that Christmas offers opportunities for me to show kindness, gentleness, and patience to others. Remind me how important it is to put others around me at ease. And most of all, send folk my way that need someone to love them. I'll make their day. In the strong Name of Jesus I pray. Amen.