Are YOU Polluted by the World?

In my devotions, this morning, Pamela Reeve focused her devotional contribution on Proverbs 12:16 "A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult." (NIV) I pray this will be engraved in my brain, especially today...it's evaluation day. That one time a year that comes around where my boss gets to tell me everything that I'm doing wrong...I used to look forward to evaluations, but the past three years have really changed my outlook on this one day every year.



You see, my supervisor has admitted to being intimidated by my skills and experience and feared that I am "out for her job"...nothing could be further from the truth! Things got better for a few months, but then a new staff person was added and it's all gone down~hill again. I have analyzed the situation and have determined that she has a serious case of transference...she is very intimidated by this new employee, as she was with me, but one step further is that the new person is in a position to step in and become the "new boss". Transference, you ask, how is she transferring that to me? Well, throughout the whole year, plus that she was acting this way toward me, I said nothing, did nothing, except my job, that is. And I did my job, joyfully, as if God were my supervisor...actually, that's how I "made it through," so-to-speak. I focused and reminded myself, daily, that I am in this position only as long as God wants me to be here and bottom line, God IS my Supervisor, so that's how I did my job...anytime I was face with a difficult situation, I prayed about it and God led me through the storm.



Some things have transpired in recent weeks that I have not responded to as spiritually as I should have or would have liked to. I know those will be brought up during my evaluation today. I pray that I will remember Proverbs 12:16. Not only that, but James 1:22-25 "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away an immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it -- he will be blessed in what he does. If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this" to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" (emphasis added).