Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:00 — 4.1MB)
Today, Fran met the new manager of her department—Ben Mason—and she’s not happy about him. This evening, she calls her friend Louise to commiserate about Ben, but instead Louise refuses to get into a gossip session. Fran ended the conversation rather abruptly, but her face is glowing red, both from anger and from shame. She is angry with Louise for confronting her so forcefully, and ashamed of how she behaved.
Fran steams around the house for half an hour with a fierce battle inside her. Finally, she sits down with her Bible and begins to pray. But few words come out before the tears start. “Lord, I’m so sorry. How could I behave so badly? How could I?” Fran cries out to the Lord. She is so disappointed in herself. She knows better than to gossip. She knows how wrong it is to have such a rotten attitude. She knows to take her concerns to the Lord and not complain to people. She knows all that, and yet she has done just the opposite.
Opening her Bible to Romans 7, she reads beginning in verse 21:
So, I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 7:21-25)!
“Wretched, Lord,” Fran prays, “that’s exactly the way I feel. I want to do your will, yet so easily, so quickly, I go back to my own self-centered way of responding. Please forgive me.” After a time of prayer and assurance that the Lord has indeed forgiven her, Fran thinks about what her next steps should be. “First, I have some apologies to make. Then I have to change my attitude toward Ben. He is my manager, and no one is in my life by accident.”
She turns to Romans 13 and reads again the passage about those in authority:
Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves (Romans 13:1-2).
She prays for God to help her to respect Ben and his authority over her.
Before going to bed, she phones Louise back with a sincere apology, and the two of them covenant again to hold each other accountable. The next day at work Fran finds a moment alone with George to apologize for her participation in the bad words about Ben.
But now the challenge begins: She must deal directly with Ben Mason, her new boss.