Isaiah 54: 17
Growing up, my dad periodically told me about his
acquaintanceship with his co-workers. He told me of times that they would come
in to work talking about their weekend at the club and he replied talking about
his weekend at church. He said they began complaining about the Godly things he
interjected with and he let them know that he refused to listen to the worldly
things they spoke of. Eventually they stopped coming to with their weekend
plans and stay clear of him if they don’t want an earful of conviction.
For the past few months I had the opportunity to work with a
summer camp. There, I expected to meet people who had a desire to interact with
children, who would be professional, and who would enjoy doing their job.
However, that wasn’t the case. My peers, or co-workers, hated coming in to work
everyday, they were always out of uniform, and they had no experience in
working with children whatsoever. Not only that, by like some of my dad’s
co-workers, they brought their personal lives in to the work place. They used
profanity, talked about inappropriate things, and shared vulgar pictures on
their phones. I didn’t want to be apart of the things they were involved in but
I didn’t want to be rude either. When a new workweek started and they shared their
wild party stories from the weekend before, I told them about the church
services I had gone to. They gave me weird looks when they found out that I
don’t listen to secular music, I don’t use profane words, I don’t party, I
don’t drink, I don’t do drugs and that I’m a virgin. They made offensive
comments, assuming it was a strict religious cult rules that made me not do the
things that they did. I tried to make them understand that following the Word
of God is a choice, and it was a choice that I had made. They didn’t understand
and I could tell that the more I talked about Jesus the more uncomfortable they
got with the subject, and me.
Eventually,
after not having much more to say, they stopped talking to me all
together. However, that didn’t stop them from talking about me. They
called me foul names under their breath as I walked by them, they tried to turn
the campers against me, and when I asked for help they gave me vicious
attitude. I didn’t understand the change in their behavior towards me until one
of them said, “You should just try to be normal like the rest of us. I mean, I
go to church on Sundays too but all that ‘Jesus stuff’ everyday is just too
much. ” I started to blame myself, and others, who I thought would have my
back, started blaming me too. It hurt being treated so badly for having a
different mentality towards things. However, as much as I wanted my co-workers
to like me, I knew that I wasn’t going to give up my relationship with God so in
response to it all I kept my distance, which was hard being that they
approached me with multiple intimidating tactics. I came to work nervous, did
my job continually looking over my shoulder, and went home an emotional mess
until one night I was flipping through my notebook, in which I keep important
spiritual notes, and came across a biblical verse.
This
brings me to the scripture above. In this chapter Isaiah is speaking of God’s
love for Israel. In summary, Israel has always been the little guy that other
great nations chose to pick on. However, Israel is and its people are also
God’s chosen. When applied to our spiritual walk with Christ, as saints we are
His chosen. Therefore, the same protection He has over Israel, He has over us
too so nothing that the world and its minions can draw up to use against us
will succeed. Even though my co –workers tried to tare me down I shouldn’t have
felt defeated because I had the victory all along. After reading that
scripture, as annoying as it still was, their name calling, rude comments,
smart remarks and intimidating tactics no longer had the same fearful and
discriminating effect on me. As saved people, I’ve come to learn that everyone
is not going to like us, and it’s because of who we belong to. People fear what
they don’t know or don’t understand, so instead of giving it a chance they shun
it or try to change it to suit them better. My co-workers clearly didn’t get my
love for God and they tried to terrorize it out of me but at the end of the day
its not their acceptance or love that I really need, its God’s.
