For over the past month I have been doing business everyday with international people; people from Greece, Columbia, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Russia, and Israel; it’s really quit amazing…
In the energy business you come to expect people to be dishonest – I guess that’s true in any business generally these days. When there is money involved, especially a lot of money, people change right in front of you; it’s almost like a spirit takes over and they begin to think differently, on the spot.
And, I guess, you come to expect it – which is still very hard for me to understand… and then, you have to check your own heart. Am I changing here? Am I becoming judgmental, angry; am I loosing faith in man-kind?!
I was sharing with Seth Barnes the other day my frustrations with people I have known for a very long time; changing on the spot. Wanting more then they should have, stepping into that grey place of greed, self-rights, almost setting themselves on a throne that is only reserved for Jesus. At least that was my perspective…
Seth said, “Wow, Gary, sounds like a test from God for you”! He continued, “I guess at the end of the day, at the end of our lives we are going to be asked one question; ‘did you love them anyway’? No mater how people treat us, no matter what we think or what they actually did, did we love them anyway”?
It floored me as I had lost perspective – I have been so wrapped up in work, in me, that I lost perspective on why I do anything I do… to serve others, no matter how they act or how I think they act… of course, we have to be wise as serpents and diligent in all we do, but, at the end of the day, at the end of life, the question we all have to answer is; “Did we love them anyway”?
I guess that’s the Church…
