So when I was working at JC Penney 10 years ago, I had a really funny run in with one of my managers. I was working behind the counter, and was busily trying to take care of something. In a bizarre moment of me tripping over something, I lost my balance. As I fell backwards, I fell right into a box! With my butt firmly planted on the bottom and me in an awkward position, I was looking to find a way out. When lo and behold, the evening manager was standing at my register. Looking at me quizzically, he motioned and ordered me to get up. I was so embarrassed!
My direct supervisor received the report that I was sitting on the job. She asked me what I was doing, and then I explained to her what happened. She laughed it off, and told me that she told him that it was under control. It dawned on me that anything that I ever did that day did not matter at that moment, because all he saw was me in the box. Never mind the fact that 5 seconds before I was upright and straightening out my area, when he walked by, I was in the box. That meant that I was being lazy, and that is all that mattered.
So you might be wondering to me, "what does this matter?" The reason that I am mentioning this is that appearance was everything. I know people hate hearing that for many reasons. For most people, this invokes the feelings of having to be fake for appearance sakes, having to be perfect at all times, or being legalistic. This is not what I am getting at. But I do want to talk about trying to be genuine and doing your best to live a healthy life.
Jesus had many people who criticized him for this reason or that. One of the best examples was when Jesus healed the man with a paralyzed hand (John 12:9-14). In the first part of John 12, the disciples get in trouble with the Pharisees for eating a head of grain on the sabbath, since they considered it work. The legalism was out of control, and they even considered healing a man on the sabbath to be breaking the law since it was "work". Jesus healed the man since he felt that it was lawful to do good on the sabbath.
When we read this chapter, it is evident that if Jesus wanted to look good, he would have just followed the legalism and let the man be. But he did not, he did what was right. The Pharisees wanted to find something wrong with Jesus because they were jealous of him. Also, he was completely ruining their game that was rigged for them to win. So automatically, they did not want him to become popular.
Isn't that the way that life is? People who dislike you for no reason try to find a valid reason to dislike you. The point is that they are so focused on watching us fail that they saw anything less than perfect as failure and they do not want to hear anything else. They are right in their own minds. Imagine what they could see if they put that amount of effort into looking for the positive things in life!
The truth is that we can not be perfect. It is impossible. I am not asking anyone to try and be perfect. Instead, I am asking you to be mature about who you are and do your best to love God and love others. We will make mistakes, however, we do not want to give nay-sayers the luxury of having a lot of incidents to chose from. It also goes without saying, do not come down on others because of their failures, because we have all made mistakes.
The other reason that we want to do our best is that people are watching us because they want to see us win. I am sure that if Jesus did not do what was right and heal the man, than there would have been a lot of people that would have lost heart and became disillusioned. At the end of the day, the good that came of the situation was much better than the negative: A man was healed and Jesus convicted (hopefully) the Pharisees of their corrupt ways.
As you go about your business, my hope is that you would try to live fearless of criticism. We have been given grace, but that does not mean that we should abuse it. Let us not think more highly of ourselves than we ought, because our purpose is to love God, and to love and take care of others as we love ourselves. There will be Pharisees in our lives, but just look at the source... many of them are jealous and hate themselves. But please keep in mind that we do not want to give them a reason to pass negative views on to others, because some people might get deceived by them.
So the moral of the story is if you fall into a box, don't stand up too quickly, because it might remain attached to your bum... which is embarrassing! But seriously, God's opinion matters the most, so lets do our best to be great examples of him!
