March 10, 2012
To be honest, I wasn’t happy to be making another trip to the store. For the previous 4 weeks, my wife and I had been trying to get a refund for a bad refrigerator. As I spoke with the manager—again—it seemed that we were heading down another dead-end road. As we talked, I wondered if we would ever get our money back, but I tried to be gracious.
At one point the manager said, “By now, customers are usually yelling at me, but you’ve been so patient.” Then he said, “Let’s try something else.” He asked me some questions and punched some numbers into a cash register. After a short delay—and some stories about irate customers—the machine spit out a receipt showing a refund! Our appliance nightmare was over. “Thanks for being so good to work with,” he said as we parted ways.
While I think being nice when I didn’t feel nice helped in this process, getting refunds is not why we should show kindness to others. The real reason is that as Christians we are to reflect the light of Jesus (Eph. 5:8) on everyone—whether it’s an irate neighbor, a bumbling waiter, or a department store manager. Our speech and behavior are to be a positive witness (Eph. 4:29-32; Col. 4:6). Are you facing a conflict? Let Jesus’ light shine through.
Read: Ephesians 5:1-10
