Gas Pumps and Grocery Carts

“Kroger is hell.”

The woman behind the vendor window could not have known I was listening to her conversation. Her friend was gassing up and there I was, right on the other side of the pump. She was glad her friend’s daughter didn’t take a job at Kroger.

The next day I was returning a shopping cart (two actually) when I was nearly run over by a long string of carts pushed by a woman too small to possibly handle her load. We laughed and exchanged the necessary pleasantries. She told me she was sorry for trying to kill me.

“They’re your carts,” I said, “You can do with them what you want.”

“They’re not my carts!” was her sharp reply. “They can all roll out of the parking lot for all I care.”

I began to wonder what it was about working at Kroger that was so bad. I’ve been in bad jobs before. I know the feeling. Some of them were bad because the circumstances were truly miserable. Some of them were bad because I simply refused to find positive things about it. Some, because I was a terrible employee. But why were these women so bummed about Kroger?

My first thought was, “If I was the manager here….” That’s pretty funny in and of itself. Sometimes I think I couldn’t manage myself out of a wet paper bag. Then I began to think about satisfaction and being satisfied. I began to think that, through all the fuss, people basically just want to be happy. They want to enjoy getting the buggies out of the parking lot or authorizing the gas pumps. They want to open the door at home and find a family that brings them a little relief at the end of the day. They want wives that esteem them and children that make them proud. People genuinely want to enjoy the world around them - even if that means eating at White Castle every day. Whatever makes you happy, right?

We do pursue our own pleasures. Sometimes people find pleasure in being generally disagreeable. The lady that cut my hair today was still complaining that her band teacher in 8th grade had gotten on to her for something trivial. How do you hold on to resentment for that long? It brings satisfaction. I bought a set of brake pads and a caliper for the Jeep the other day. The clerk and I talked about (what else?) - his job. He hates it. Why would you tell the first customer of the day that you hated your job. It brings satisfaction. There is an odd release in spilling the beans to a complete stranger.

I always feel bad for those types of outbursts in my life. Just the other day, I had a very embarrassing conversation with a friend of mine. We couldn’t quite get on the same page communication wise and I ending up saying things that I didn’t really mean and that I can’t quickly erase. Why did I do that? Satisfaction. I was pleased to say things that seemed right at the time but, in retrospect, revealed the pitiful whine of a self-centered individual. I’ll just blame it on lack of sleep.

It dawns on me that if I will keep an eye on the created reality of God revealed to us in Jesus Christ and experienced in His Spirit, that I will cease to think in self-centered terms and learn to believe in the gospel of the kingdom. Jesus would surely do that much for me, don’t you think? So instead of putting new whine in old skins, I could respond to my world with a much more joyful attitude. In this way, all my frustrations become opportunities, the demands become privileges, the stress becomes sanctification. Yes, I’m sure Jesus said something about beauty for ashes (or was that Crystal Lewis?).

I don’t know why in the past year I have had to take the journey that I have. I don’t understand the weeks of paralysis in spirit and heart. I don’t quite get why it has taken so much energy to be excited about what I do. I don’t know the reasons behind how much work it takes to have a happy marriage and well-behaved kids, not to mention a lawn that the neighbors can be proud of. To go even darker, it is incomprehensible to me that I would find pleasure in pet sins. Yet that is what I have done. It’s about satisfaction - and about finding the center again.

Man is sinful. Not just deep down but right out on the surface too. God is full of lovingkindness. Not just on the surface but deep, deep down. There is something in that. Some truth that finds lodging in the inner-most recesses of the heart. It comes home to roost. I am sinful. God is full of lovingkindness.

Maybe that really is the answer to hating your job, or your wife, or your parents, or your friends. You are sinful. God is full of lovingkindness. The simplicity of it makes it hard to believe. Your job, your husband, your parents, and your friends all have the capacity to really make you miserable if you choose to find your satisfaction in that misery. But God has something better. He is something better. I think I remember Jesus saying something like that too. Something greater than Jonah is here. Something greater than Solomon.

Hell is whatever doesn’t line up with God. It is all the things you find pleasure in that aren’t Jesus Christ. Sometimes that means it is your job or your wife. Sometimes it is Kroger. But the two-fold truth still stands.

Man is a sinner. God is full of lovingkindness.

(see Psalm 36 for His word on the matter)