I'm not sure if anyone's ever witnessed someone aggressively empty a packet of Starburst into a jar.
This morning, for a variety of reasons (including being woken up at 2am by some very noisy people on the street, and a man on the tube who listened to his music at a needless volume then hatched an evil scheme to make it look like it was me), I was in a pretty rubbish mood.
The nice thing about being at work at 7.30am is that no-one else is at work because it's 7.30am. That allowed me to vent my frustration on a variety on inanimate objects with no-one any the wiser (except when I publicly wrote this blog post about it). I very rarely feel 'physical' anger but this morning for some reason I felt the need to slam every cupboard door I used (which is a lot), and I didn't so much as retrieve the butter from the fridge as shove it in the general direction of the toast making set up. As for those packets of Starburst, I hope they don't form a union.
But, of course, the second my work-colleagues and the clients were anywhere near the building, I defaulted to calm, smiley Naomi. I still slammed a couple of cupboard doors, but only because that's how you make them stay shut. In most jobs, if you're having a rubbish day, people will allow for you to be a bit grumpy and withdrawn, but in client services that just isn't an option. You're there for other people. However little you feel like it you have to start up and engage in conversations, smile as you hand people their coffee and take their lunch orders. Thankfully as our company has many lovely, friendly staff, and we have a really nice set of clients in, it wasn't long at all before enforced niceness turned into a genuine aim to please.
For Jesus, looking out for other people wasn't done in shifts. There's a passage in Mark 6 where Jesus and His disciples were exhausted - they had even made a point of finding a quiet, remote place to rest, but as soon as the people came Jesus began to teach them. No matter how tired He was, His heart was for the people who were crying out for His help. Yes, there were other times when Jesus requested to be alone, but when He was needed, He served.
This is an industry where a lot of people work very hard and invariably there will be some days when we're tired, one thing after another goes wrong and we just can't be bothered. Obviously it's important to rest when the time is right, but sometimes we need a default mode, a kick-starter to launch us into God's service when all we want to do is kick a cupboard door. Just like an editor's reliance on coffee doesn't disappear just because I've had a bad start to the day, God's work doesn't take a day off just because life hasn't gone our way.
We all have bad days, but at those times we're no less a servant of God than I am a servant of editors after a bad journey in. Except being a Christian doesn't happen in shifts. Just like as being a client services assistant means I can't simply go around grumpily placing coffee on people's desks, as Christians we should be thinking of God and other people before what we want, even if it seems like you're the only one doing so. Of course we should be honest when we're having a rough time of it, but that doesn't excuse us from being a person of God full stop.
It can be a tough concept to live by, but thankfully, we don't have to do it alone, or even by our own strength. Plus you can always take it out on the Starburst.
