So close… but still 1,000 miles away

Every parent has seen it, and so has every well-intentioned manager. I suspect we’ve all been there. In fact, I know we’ve all been there.

This is the story of seemingly appropriate behavioural responses but underpinned by prideful attitudes. You know, when someone does something you want them to do but they do it with passive aggressiveness.

I recall meeting with some supervisors a few years back who sought to help me in an area of my work they felt I needed help with. I didn’t agree. Whether it was their approach or just my pride had been piqued didn’t matter. I can recall responding in the right way, but my attitude was just rotten. My attitude reeked of self-righteousness. I thought, “I’ll be the better person here.” Of course, I was only fooling myself. Haha… “I’ll be the better person…” do you see?

They received my offer of acceptance of their help with graciousness, and yet what seethed below was an unwilling attitude.

Because of my actions I was close to what was needed, but because of my attitude I might as well have been 1,000 miles off. I wasn’t even in the ballpark. And the problem with these attitudes is that we fool nobody else but ourselves. Sooner or later our attitudes betray us as most people can ultimately discern a stinking attitude underlying supposed faithful behaviour. And when they do discover these things our credibility suffers, and it may destroy our reputation with them.

What people really want from us is our honesty, and if our attitudes betray our actions our integrity is called into question.

It is like the person who apologises by saying, “I’m really sorry, but if you had only not done a bad thing to me I would not have done anything to you… Or, I apologise, maybe don’t do such and such from now on and I won’t do such and such to you…

Apologies like that just don’t fly.

It’s like the attitudes our children have when they don’t want to comply with what they know they need to do. They may huff-and-puff around the house, slam doors and the like. They are doing what they’re supposed to be doing, but it is clear they’re asking everyone around them to pay. And it’s not just the children. Fathers and mothers and couples in conflict do this too. And as I’ve mentioned above, it happens a lot in the workplace too.

Actions without the right heart
are worse than a waste of time.

Wisdom is the practice of doing the right things, appropriately. When will we learn that right action depends on a right heart that does the action with integrity — our hands and heart and mind aligned?

I have learned the hard way. When I did what was required but I resented it all the way. It would be laughable if it weren’t so serious. Yet, I have also been blessed by God so many times when I was filled with an attitude that was beyond me, where I was able to overcome my pride and leave ‘justice’ with God.

Look, this kind of attitude is the stubbornness of being right in our own eyes.

Anyone in this place of heart ought to wisely ask, how is it going for me? Is it working? Is it making any sense? Truly, it never does. We fool nobody but ourselves.

If there is an overriding problem we have with our world, especially in a social media context, it’s that we all think we are right, that others are wrong, and that the world would be a better place if only we, ourselves, had more control. This is an attitude we must learn to regularly repent of. If we can no longer see our error we become dangerous and we don’t even know it.