This evening a friend came to visit and told of a conflict he had at work today.
He is employed in a large factory as a repair man and has a large number of complex machines to maintain. Today one machine was not producing properly, so my friend checked it and found it to be working properly. However, the operator was not following proper procedures, causing a bad outcome. A supervisor, however, disagreed saying that there was a malfunction and ordered my friend to fix it! The situation was explained again, but the supervisor refused to accept that, arrogantly saying he knew better and ordered him again to fix it!
Well, that was followed by 5 other mechanics coming over and checking the machine. Each one confirmed that the machine was fine, it was the operator who was the problem! But this didn’t make a dent with the supervisor, so my friend just walked away, but it did rankle him.
So what was going on? At the core this conflict was, of course, the lust for significance: the supervisor was new and young, inexperienced, but had a college education, while none of the mechanics did. He had to prove himself right and better, but in the process made himself ridiculous.Iin an earlier encounter my friend had said to him, “Of course you know more than I do, you’ve been here 2 years, while I’ve only been here 25!”
What about my friend? He, too, was struggling with significance: being treated like an idiot by someone who was is not pleasant. But as a believer, he was able to let go of this because he knew who he was in Christ. Let go of what you can’t change, hold on to eternal truth and rise above. And as part of that rising above, he will be praying for that supervisor. A wonderful way to end a conflict, at least from one side!
Picture: let go, hold on and rise above.
