Lesson from Character Crisis

Last week, I received calls and texts messages from serving ones in one of our offices in the South. The message was loud and clear, to summarise it, a character crisis. Due to the character problems of the serving ones comprising loose talks, hidden ambition, pride, temper and anger, a full blown crisis broke out causing panic and shock in the office. It was very unbecoming of the serving ones to fall into uncontrolled anger. Though I received reports about the incident from both the parties, I kept the matter to myself and my co-working brother, and meanwhile brought the matter to the Lord in prayer and careful consideration. It was natural for me to act immediately and take action, but I dared not trust my natural man. I prefer to defer the matter for a latter time as I needed time to pray over amd consider carefully before taking any action. Lest I fall into the same trap of Satan in dealing the flesh with the flesh. The flesh must not be dealt with the flesh. The flesh must be dealt with the Spirit.

Later in the afternoon, I had a time of fellowship with my co-working brother and had direct calls over the phone with the concerned persons. After hearing them all, we left the matter to be considered more as we would be meeting some more brothers in the following weekend training in Hyderabad. 

In the following weekend, we had a time of fellowship with the responsible brothers of the church where the incidents took place and considerd the matter carefully. We all felt good for one of the brothers to personally check with the serving one concerned about his personal and psychological well being. Though we intended to take some strict action, we would wait for a proper time to execute it.

Meanwhile, I also received messages of apology and description of how the indecent transpired. I have forwared the messages and conveyed the same to my co-working brother.

This was a good test case for me in handling crisis. First thing is, I acknowledged the fact that I cannot solve the problem and therefore, bring the matter to the Lord in prayer and also to the brothers concerned in fellowship. My greatest concern for myself is, I should not misrepresent God. If God has to fire the one concerned, I would do so. If God has to forgive and retain him, I will also do so. Until I heard from the supreme Judge, God Himself, I would wait and wait. Once the decision is made clear, I would simple pronounce the decision, whatever it may be, as from God.

For to some extent, I have learned not to live my life, but to take the life of Christ as my life. This character crisis involving our serving ones is a good examination for me. I pray that I learn the lesson I need to learn.

As the decision on action to be taken is still awaited, I wait in prayer. Meanwhile, I pray for the Lord to perfect all of us in our humanity that we can indeed live out the humanity of Christ. 

Lord, have mercy on us and perfect us in our living and service.