It was just a couple of months or so ago. I was sitting in the office at a formal disciplinary meeting and facing what seemed like imminent dismissal.

 

It had all started simply enough. It was a friday. The finish line for the weekend was in sight. The rush of produce for the upstairs packing area was over and I breathed a sigh of relief. I was working with the porters as head porter at the time and I had access to the computer. I looked through the microsoft operating system for the games section and clicked on one. . I figured no-one would see. I was wrong. My manager saw it and he was very unhappy. 

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There were a number of things I thought about saying and in fairness it wouldn't have done me much good. But I was worried and angry...and angry that I was worried. I was stuck. This was very much out of my hands. As the day came I realised I was within hours of being out of a job and there was seemingly little or nothing I could do about it. So I did the only thing I knew to do in difficult circumstances. I prayed. I asked for wisdom. Up to that point I had quite self righteously prepared to defend my corner. Now I realised I needed help and quick but would God actually help me if I had done something wrong? What if he thought I deserved this? I did the one thing I knew and that was to ask for mercy. Then I asked for wisdom before stopping to listen. I waited a moment and then the words came.

 

"Your first responsibility is to reflect me even if it costs you your job."

 

There I was was worrying about my job and God was intent on reminding me of my first responsibility. I had to think about that for a while. What did honouring God in that meeting look like? In light of that I decided to take a very different approach to that meeting.

 

I invited a friend to be my witness at the disciplinary meeting. He had been both a worker and in a supervisory role at a previous job and he had experience of being on both sides of such meetings. As we walked to the office he told me to prepare for the worst.

 

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We were invited back into the room we had the meeting. With a tone of mild surprise I was told "Well Steve, you've left us with a bit of a dilemma." It seemed something I had said had caused them to rethink what had threatened to be a

formality. In the end was a total surprise. Not only were they not going to dismiss me but I was assured that there would be no formal disciplinary measure. No verbal warning or written warning and nothing on my record. I would be given other duties for a while which did not involve using a computer and at the end the manager told me, "If you what to progress in this company this is not the end for you."

 

One of the things that has been reinforced in my life is the understanding that God is more concerned with character than he is with jetting off to some foreign country. He is more concerned that we reflect him than that we do things for him. Now, just a few months later I am moving on to do missionary work. I do so with my financial situation still intact and on good terms with the company I am leaving. I can't claim to be some moral giant but I have learned to stop and listen sometimes. I have often tended to end up doing much better when I learned to do that.