I've pulled a lot of twelve hour shifts, taken a lot of slack about what the owner had or hadn't brought in, and generally just ran the business the best I could with what was given to me.
Recently thing have come about with my job that caused a lot of drama and ended up causing the owner to sign the business over to the land lords.
And to be honest I was a little bit pissed, but I could live with it, it meant I was going to get the help I needed and I could make some sacrifices.
The land lords asked to meet with me today to discuss the terms of my employment with them rather than my previous boss.
Last night I had been angry because of the way I had been previously treated by the land lords and now they wanted to 'reason with me'. I don't consider my self a difficult person to get on with, but they treated me as if I was unwilling to work with them prior to my previous boss signing the store over to them. Which wasn't true. I was loyal to by previous employer because he was my employer. It never meant that I was fully filled in on any situations between him and the land lords, or that I even sided with him about any arguments between he and the land lords. It meant that I wasn't going to get involved with something that didn't directly concern me.
But this morning when I woke up I prayed about it, I really really sought the Lord about what to say, how to approach it and I gave him these stipulations.
"God I'll stay and work for them, even if they take away my management position, but I can't afford a pay cut, you gave me the car I wanted for a price I could afford with the pay I was receiving and you won't take it away from me now. You gave me a dream for a ministry that would take trips regularly over to japan and I'd be able to pay part of my own way with the money I had previously been making, and you won't take that away from me." "Give me the right words to say to him, the right questions to ask."
And God replied. "Red Hot Heart, Ice Cold Brain."
It was a saying that Andrew Shearman, one of my teachers in Spain (who is mega anointed and wise by the way) said often. It means to go into situations with your heart full of passion but your brain working with complete logic and not running away with all those passionate feelings. It was always great advice but today I was going to put it into practice.
So I told my self, and I told God, I would stay unless they reduced my pay down to Seven dollars, and they refused to move on passed the previous owners short comings.
When I got to the store and had my meeting my stipulations were met with flying colors. No matter how many times I told the land lord I wasn't informed of decisions made between he and the previous owner he kept trying to tell me about how he had 'pulled the wool over our eyes' and how 'he wasn't the man we thought he was'. I stuck to my guns, I refused to let him talk about this man with out him being there to defend himself, and that it was not relevant to our agreement about my employment. I was willing to forget my previous boss ever owned that store and work solely for him (at least for a little while any way) but he refused to let me work for him unless I let him talk about the previous owner.
The land lord I should point out is a Christian, he is a minister and he is very dogmatic, king james only and the like. I think he's experiencing GOd in his own way and I expected him to respect the fact that I was trying to honor him, honor my previous boss and honor my self by moving passed that and starting fresh. But he didn't, infact he pulled out his big guns "Your Boss told lies about you."
I froze here, because honestly I didn't know if my previous boss would have or not, I would have hoped he hadn't but I wasn't sure. My first instinct was to hear what he had to say, ask what my previous boss had said. But God spoke to me then.
"Is defending your self worth loosing your honor?" And again I heard something Andrew said to us in Class.
"One day your going to have a choice on whether you're going to be morally bankrupt and financially sound or stand firm and let God take care of you. "
And my choice was made clear then. I cut off his story there.
I told him as long as he knew they were lies, I didn't need to know what was said, and that we could move passed them and forgive and forget. Then I told him that what I wanted to know that would decide my staying on with them or not was "Will I still be the manager, and will I still receive the same pay?"
And I can quote exactly what he said to me.
"I would love to have given you that pay, but honestly I can't give you $9 an hour if you we can't talk about the past, and I would have loved to have started you at $7 an hour and given you raises, but obviously we can't communicate."
I knew then I had to go. I couldn't afford to stay there much less could I morally afford to stay there.
I refused to stay under some one who felt that moving forward meant dwelling on the past.
So I thanked him for his time and told him that I appreciated him taking time out to talk to me and that he considered me for staying on.
I told him that I was sorry he felt we couldn't see eye to eye but I felt like God was calling me to a place of honor and that I didn't feel right in my spirit about talking about my previous boss with out him being there to defend himself or to agree with the land lord.
Before I could leave the land lord said something to me that made it hurt personally.
He said to me;
"I've been a Christian longer than you, and I've had many more years walking close with the Lord than you have, what you think is honoring him isn't, and I'm sorry you couldn't see that."
It took everything in me not to shout at him. But I had to turn on that ice cold brain.
"I have been a Christian since I was 5 years old, I've graduated from a Christian Leadership Academy, I'm starting a ministry and I've been part of ministry since before I could walk. God speaks to me as a prophet and as a friend and I'm sorry that where he's calling me isn't where you are comfortable with." then I shook his hand and thanked him again for his time, I told him that this conversation didn't effect my view of the coffee shop, his personal business and that I was glad that my sister was still employed with him and that this didn't effect her job. After i let go of his hand I turned around and left.
I sat in my car broken, sobbing and crying out to God. Why did doing what he told me hurt so bad!? Why did it have to be so hard!?
But it was a lesson I had to learn, one I'm still sorting through and sifting through and working on.
"Be devoted to one another and out do one another in showing honor"
-Romans 12:10
My Honor is worth more than my reputation. God is looking out for me, and a job where I would have to lower the standard of honor God has set for me isn't going to fulfill me.
I'm sorry I had to quit my job, that I had to leave the coffee shop, I enjoyed my work and my customers, and I still harbor no ill will or hard feelings against the book store and it's owners the land lord, but I refuse to work where my walk with God and my ability to hear his call is questioned because of who my previous employer was.
